A Well-Loved Name - Sligo Poets

 Sligo Times 12 April 1913
    A WELL-LOVED NAME

(A stranger’s tribute to the memory
of the late Mrs Gray, Manorhamilton)

Her genial face no more we’ll see
   Nor voice so gentle hear,
And all who knew whoe’er they be
   Will sadly shed a tear.

Fate has decreed that grief no more
   Shall reach her kindly heart;
That all its slightest qualms are o’er,
   That peace ‘twill never part.

She lived in bliss with those who grieve,
   In peace with human kind,
Earth a greatest triumph won – to leave
   A well-loved name behind.

This is a simple, well-constructed elegy for a recently deceased person which has a quiet grace often lacking in such compositions. Three short stanzas, an unobtrusive rhyming scheme, simple rhymes and diction add to the effect.

The last stanza with the explanation of the significance of the title is very effective and is designed to be praise for the dead and a consolation to those left behind.

The absence of any detail with regard to the dead person - we don't even know her first name - is a disappointment but the whole tone of the poem is that of talking to friends who don't need to be reminded of the details.

Who the dead person was is unknown. The most likely Gray or Grey in Manorhamilton DED in the 1911 census seems to be Eliza Jane Grey, aged 34, married with five children. The family was Church of Ireland and the father worked on the railway.