Casgliadau Arlein

LINEN, embroidered with coloured silks in cross stitch. At the top in five rows, separated by zig-zag and wavy stripes, are the letters of the alphabet repeated four times and again to N, numerals to 14 and 10, a crown and a diamond. Below are the following verses:

"AH! Few and full of Sorrow are the Days Of miserable Man: His Life decays Like that frail Flower, which with the Sun's uprise Her Bud unfolds, and with the Evening dies: He, like an empty Shadow glides away, And all his Life is but a Winter's Day On Death Death at a Distance we but slightly fear, He brings his Terrors as he draws more near: Through Poverty, Pain, Slav'ry, we drudge on The worst of Beings better please than none: No Price too dear to purchase Life and Breath The heaviest Burthen’s easier born than Death."

At the bottom is the inscription: "SOPHIA 1789 EDWARDS"

Source: Guide to the Collection of Samplers & Embroideries (Cardiff: National Museum of Wales, 1939) by F.G. Payne.