We'll Pay For It

Gravestone in Warriston Cemetery, Edinburgh. Not the cheeriest blip, but I spent an hour in the cemetery today after finding it entirely by mistake. This is a huge area which has been largely abandoned. As I walked across the old railway bridge footpath from Cannonmills, I noticed a broken wall by the Water of Leith. "What's down there?" I wondered - and found myself in The Secret Garden of Death. The broken and fallen headstones and tombs are covered in ivy and moss. At this time of year there are snowdrops here and there and I tried to get an angle with flowers in the foreground but I didn't succeed. So I tried to portray the atmosphere and ended up with this ostensibly upbeat message.

Later, I did a bit of internetting and found the full text. Sadly it turns out to be bloody miserable, in the best tradition of the Kirk, which follows Calvinist Reformation theology "best known for its doctrines of predestination and total depravity, stressing the absolute sovereignty of God and the futility of human action". Oh, great. That'll keep the people in their place.

The line in the photograph is from the Translations and Paraphrases section of the Church of Scotland hymnal used up to the 19th Century. These are the opening 2 verses of "Job 14:1-15: Few are thy days, and full of woe".

Few are thy days, and full of woe,
O man, of woman born!
Thy doom is written, 'Dust thou art,
and shalt to dust return.'

Behold the emblem of thy state
in flow'rs that bloom and die,
Or in the shadow's fleeting form,
that mocks the gazer's eye.

Later in the same passage is a really nicely phrased account of regeneration and renewal. This is the one I would choose for my headstone.

Yet soon reviving plants and flow'rs
anew shall deck the plain;
The woods shall hear the voice of Spring,
and flourish green again.

... but then we're straight back to the fire & brimstone of the central message. And they wonder why the aisles aren't full on Sundays.

This reminds me of a story I heard on the radio from a Scot returning from years in New Zealand, which he told to sum up this pervasive attitude that underlies the Scottish psyche. He was walking through St Andrews in Fife. Passing an elderly lady, he remarked on the beautiful day. "Aye," she replied, "but we'll pay for it."

Here's the full text.