This plaque is in the tower entrance to Eversholt Church. Click for the full-resolution version.
For the search engines, the plaque reads:
Sarah Hodgkinson departed this life 5th November 1788 aged 27 Years
leaving a disconsolate Husband, a Son aged two Years
and a New-born infant Daughter.The choicest Gift that nature could bestow,
That man could here possess or wish to know;
The modest Glow of Youth, fair Beauty’s Bloom,
Extinguishe’d, blighted, lie beneath this Tomb;
A DAUGHTER, where a Father could repair
To catch fresh Vigor from her filial Care;
A WIFE, chaste Emblem of seraphic Love,
Of all that Angels can enjoy above;
A PARENT, who her lovely Race began,
Establish’d in the Pattern of a Man;
And pleas’d her next her last fond Hope to save,
Sunk with serene Composure to the Grave,
For Heav’n a Gift in Mercy to Mankind,
Left the fair Model of herself behind;
Their polish’d Minds, their Form, their future Worth,
Shall soon announce the womb that gave them Birth;
A FRIEND, whose Heart could bleed for others woe,
And for their Happiness her own foregoe;
A CHRISTIAN meek, who unappall’d at Death
Spotless resign’d as she received her Breath.
Lent only was the bright Example here,
Recall’d too early to its native Sphere.
Reader! if thou for Bliss supreme dost sigh,
Be thine, like her to live, like her to die.
That text has been quoted in print once before, according to Google, in The New Lady’s Magazine for 1791.
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