In Memory of
Mrs. MARGARET
ASHLEY. who
died 25th July
1791. in the 77th
Year of her Age.
Life is a bubble
quickly broke:
A tale forgot
as soon as spoke,
A shadow changing
with the sun
which spreads itself
& then is gone.
The image of life as a bubble is a recurring trope among these epitaphs; here a now-anonymous bespoke writer has extended her/himself, building on the image with two very fine metaphors for brevity, transience, and mutability: An unremembered bit of passing conversation, and a shadow that changes and disappears as the sunlight moves in the course of a day. The message is all the more compelling for the reader in the context of a woman who lived to her 77th year, which seems to us mortals like a long time.
