GRAVE POETRY All Saints’ Church, Madeley, North Staffordshire by   Charles E S Fairey   October 2022     Grave Poetry Grave Poetry is a timeless tradition, with many examples up and down the country, but it became especially fashionable during the Victorian Era, when there was much emphasis on death and mourning, especially because Queen Victoria lost her young husband, Prince Albert, and was in a perpetual state of mourning for the rest of her life. The whole country seemed to be in mourning, and much was written about the rules and modes of such.   The words we find in poems upon Victorian grave stones, ask the viewer to contemplate their own mortality, and are especially religious, pleading with the reader to take notice of God, and to make peace with Him.   Some might say that the dead are talking to us from beyond the grave, wishing us to take heed of their immortal monumental words, for our time shall come, and we have no option but to abide.   Gra