In perhaps the oddest scene of Digby Rumsden’s frustrating one-hour documentary on Lord Dunsany, Shooting for the Butler (2014), the filmmaker himself looks for Dunsany’s gravestone in grounds of the St. Peter and St. Paul Church in Shoreham, Kent. Unable to find it, he concludes that it is no longer there. But others have not only found it, but photographed it.
Mike Barrett (a Kent resident) wrote about visiting it in “Dunsany: The Final Resting Place” in The New York Review of Science Fiction for December 2008. He noted that “the unpretentious grave is easy to find.” In Roy Bateson’s The End: An Illustrated Guide to the Graves of Irish Writers (2004), there appears the below photograph. Bateson notes that he “found the grave almost immediately. Go up the path and stand in front of the church, The grave is about 30 paces to the left of the church and about four metres back towards the road.”
Both Barrett and Bateson transcribe the headstone:
IN
LOVING MEMORY OF
EDWARD JOHN MORETON DRAX
18TH LORD DUNSANY
DIED 25TH OCTOBER 1957
AGED 79 YEARS
'NATURE I LOVED AND NEXT TO NATURE ART'
BEATRICE, LADY DUNSANY
DIED 30TH MAY 1970
AGED 89 YEARS
Barrett identified the qute from Walter Savage Landor’s four-line poem, “Dying Speech of an Old Philsopher” (1849):
I strove with none; for none was worth my strife;
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
There is a poem (presumably by Lord Dunsany, but it has no known publication) on the plaque at the bottom, reading:
I, THAT HAVE LOVED THE SUN, LIE HERE, AND LOVED
THE GREAT GREY SHADOWS OF THE CLOUDS THAT PASS
OVER THE EARTH, THE SOFT CRISP ENGLISH AIR,
THE GREY SEPTEMBER DEW THICK ON THE GRASS.
I LOVED THE COOL STRANGE LIGHT THE RAINBOW GIVES,
THE DEEP NOTE OF THE BEES UP IN THE LIME,
THE SMELL OF HONEYSUCKLE & SWEET BRIAR,
AND THE HOT SCENT, UNDER MY FEET, OF THYME.
LATE SUNLIGHT SLANTING ON THE IRISH PLAIN,
THE LINE OF LOW BLUE HILLS AGAINST THE SKY
I LOVED WHILE SIGHT & MEMORY WERE MINE
OTHERS WILL LOVE THEM STILL WHILE HERE I LIE.
Upon closer inspection, it becomes evident that the stone is inscribed with the correct "AGED 79 YEARS", but in certain lighting in some photos the "8" looks like a "9".
ReplyDeleteUnder the poem there is the signature "B.D." Who B.D. is, I do not know.
Thanks. I've fixed the 78 to the correct 79. Mike Barrett mentions the "B.D." signature in his article--which could mean "Baron Dunsany" or "Beatrice Dunsany" his wife. But that can't be seen in the photo so I left that out.
ReplyDeleteDuh! I meant "in certain lighting the '9' looks like an '8'", of course.
ReplyDelete"B.D." confuses me a bit because both "Baron Dunsany" and "Beatrice Dunsany", both of which I have considered, are usages that would be formally off-key. But I still think Beatrice is the most likely poet here; it does not have the Dunsany ring to it, in my humble opinion.
You may be right. I confess I've assumed that the "I" in the "I, that have loved the sun" was Lord Dunsany. But the placement of the plaque at the bottom, under Beatrice's name, might instead suggest that it refers to her. (And her name on the headstone is given as "B--, Lady D--" so perhaps whomever added the plaque after her death used the "B.D.")
ReplyDelete