Sacred to the memory of
my husband John Barnes
who died January 3, 1803
His comely young widow, aged 23, has many
qualifications of a good wife, and yearns to be comforted. Mrs John Barnes, Vermont cemetery
Here lies Lester Moore
Four slugs from a .44
No Les No More. Lester Moore, Tombstone, Arizona
Reader if cash thou art
In want of any
Dig 4 feet deep
And thou wilt find a Penny. John Penny, Wimborne, England
Archibald Knox. Artist. Humbled Servant of God in the Ministry of the Beautiful. Archibald Knox’s gravestone
Site of King Arthur’s Tomb. In the year 1191 the bones of King Arthur and his Queen were said to have been found on the south side of the lady chapel. On 19th April 1278 their remains were removed in the presence of King Edward I and Queen Eleanor to a black marble tomb on this site. This tomb survived until the dissolution of the abbey in 1539. Plaque at Glastonbury Abbey
Stone, steel, dominions pass,
Faith too, no wonder;
So leave alone the grass
That I am under. A E Housman
I’d like to have on my gravestone: He encouraged us. I’m proud to have been in the parliament that introduced the health service, the welfare state and voted against means testing. I did my maiden speech on nationalising the steel industry, put down the first motion for the boycott of South African goods, and resigned from the shadow cabinet in 1958 because of their support for nuclear weapons. Tony Benn, Socialist Review 2007
He somehow embodied a symbolic British reaction to the whirlpool of the modern world, endlessly perplexed by the dizzying and incoherent pattern of events but doing his courteous best to ensure that resentment never showed. The Guardian, obituary leading article re John le Mesurier
John le Mesurier wishes it to be known that he conked out on November 15th. He sadly misses family and friends. The Times 16th November 1983, obituary for John Le Mesurier
A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, re Florence Nightingale
Soul of the Age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! Ben Jonson, ‘To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Mr William Shakespeare’
… And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe’s mighty line. ibid.
… And although thou hast small Latin, and less Greek.
From thence to honour thee, I would not seek
For names. ibid.
… He was not of an age, but for all time! ibid.
… Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza, and our James! ibid.
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy.
Seven years thou’ wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon ‘scap’d world’s and flesh’s rage,
And, if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, ask’d, say here doth lie
Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.
For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
As what he loves may never like too much. Ben Jonson, On My First Son
Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days!
None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise. Fitz-Greene Halleck, On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake, 1820
How soon the film of death obscured the eye,
Whence genius wildly flashed. John Keats, The Death of Chatterton 1815
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vassal lie
Emptied of its poetry. W H Auden, In Memory of W B Yeats
A young Apollo, golden-haired,
Stands dreaming on the verge of strife,
Magnificently unprepared
For the long littleness of life. Frances Cornford nee Darwin 1886-1960 ‘Youth’ on Rupert Brooke
Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers. Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essays Contributed to the Edinburgh Review 1843
Here lies he who neither feared nor flattered any flesh. James Douglas, Earl of Morton c.1516-81, re John Knox
Ordinarily, the man who loves the woods and mountains, the trees, the flowers, and the wild things, has in him some indefinable quality of charm, which appeals even to those sons of civilization who care for little outside of paved streets and brick walls. John Muir was a fine illustration of this rule. He was by birth a Scotchman – a tall and spare man, with the poise and ease natural to him who has lived much alone under conditions of labor and hazard. He was a dauntless soul, and also one brimming over with friendliness and kindliness.
He was emphatically a good citizen. Not only are his books delightful, not only is he the author to whom all men turn when they think of the Sierras and northern glaciers, and the giant trees of the California slope, but he was also – what few nature lovers are – a man able to influence contemporary thought and action on the subjects to which he had devoted his life. He was a great factor in influencing the thought of California and the thought of the entire country so as to secure the preservation of those great natural phenomena – wonderful canyons, giant trees, slopes of flower-spangled hillsides – which make California a veritable Garden of the Lord. Theodore Roosevelt, ‘John Muir: An Appreciation’ Outlook vol 109 (16 January 1915)
John Muir talked even better than he wrote. His greatest influence was always upon those who were brought into personal contact with him. But he wrote well, and while his books have not the peculiar charm that a very, very few other writers on similar subjects have had, they will nevertheless last long. Our generation owes much to John Muir. ibid.
He laid us as we lay at birth
On the cool flowery lap of earth. Matthew Arnold, re William Wordsworth
Mikhail Gromov, the geometer whose book Partial Differential Relations builds on Nash’s work ... ‘Many of us have the power to develop existing ideas. We follow paths prepared by others. But most of us could never produce anything comparable to what Nash produced. It’s like lightning striking. Psychologically the barrier he broke is absolutely fantastic. He has completely changed the perspective on partial differential equations. There has been some tendency in recent decades to move from harmony to chaos. Nash says chaos is just around the corner’. Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind
It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless, no refuse save the printed books; I wish I had enough sense to see ahead thirty years ago, and like some of the Elizabethans, not signed them. It is my aim, and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too, shall be them both: He made the books and he died. William Faulkner, letter to Malcolm Cowley 11th February 1949
John Pilger, 2023: There may never be another such journalist, documentarist and campaigner. A massive loss deeply felt. Thank you. As you said, Palestine is Still the Issue. Solidarity, esias ryder