Kidderminster.
_Epitaph at Crayford._--I send the following lines, if you think them
worthy an insertion in your Epitaphiana: a friend saw them in the
churchyard of Crayford, Kent.
"To the Memory of PETER IZOD, who was thirty-five years clerk of this
parish, and always proved himself a pious and mirthful man.
"The life of this clerk was just three score and ten,
During half of which time he had sung out Amen.
He married when young, like other young men;
His wife died one day, so he chaunted Amen.
A second he took, she departed,--what then?
He married, and buried a third with Amen.
Thus his joys and his sorrows were treble, but then
His voice was deep bass, as he chaunted Amen.
On the horn he could blow as well as most men,
But his horn was exalted in blowing Amen.
He lost all his wind after threescore and ten,
And here with three wives he waits till again
The trumpet shall rouse him to sing out Amen."
Tradition reports these verses to have been composed by some curate of the
parish.