An Arundel Tomb

Chichester Cathedral – just a couple of stops on the train from Arundel – contains a tomb that shows two people holding hands (believed to be Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel, and his wife, Eleanor of Lancaster). It inspired Philip Larkin to write his poem “An Arundel Tomb”, which was published in 1956.

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.