Cemetery gates and within

A dreaded sunny day 

So I meet you at the cemetry gates Keats and Yeats are on your side A dreaded sunny day So I meet you at the cemetry gates Keats and Yeats are on your side While Wilde is on mine 
So we go inside and we gravely read the stones All those people, all those livesWhere are they now ? With loves, and hates And passions just like mine They were born And then they lived And then they died It seems so unfair I want to cry 

You say : "'Ere thrice the sun done salutation to the dawn" And you claim these words as your own But I've read well, and I've heard them said A hundred times (maybe less, maybe more) If you must write prose/poems The words you use should be your own Don't plagiarise or take "on loan" 'Cause there's always someone, somewhere With a big nose, who knows And who trips you up and laughs When you fall Who'll trip you up and laugh When you fall 

You say : "'Ere long done do does did"Words which could only be your own And then produce the text From whence was ripped (Some dizzy whore, 1804) 

A dreaded sunny day So let's go where we're happy And I meet you at the cemetry gates Oh, Keats and Yeats are on your side A dreaded sunny day So let's go where we're wanted And I meet you at the cemetry gates Keats and Yeats are on your side But you lose 'Cause weird lover Wilde is on mine 

Sure !



(http://www.lyricstime.com/the-smiths-cemetery-gates-lyrics.html)


Bristol Sketchers meeting at Arnos Vale cemetery today.  I'd never been there before, in all the 50 years I've been in Bristol - never been inside the place.  Terrific sunny day and a good turn out of folks, including some people I've not met before, but Claire knows from previous meetings.


We started off in groups, then dissolve into individuals when we found the places that attract us the most.  This made the show-and-tell more interesting, tho' comparison sketches would be thought-provoking (thesaurus alert!) as well.  Here are my efforts -

The congestion of the site was engaging, if a little claustrophobic.  Talking to a chap called Roger who knew a great deal about the conservation history of the place, told me it suffered from receding funds as the place filled up.  No more revenue from fresh graves meant the perpetual maintenance of the place fell behind.  What we see today, the myriad of trees that engulf the stones, for example, were self-seeded and were never part of the landscaper's vision.  So many tombs and graves are smothered in well-established ivy or have crumbled and collapsed as a result of their age.

Reading the dedications was fascinating - one impressively statued and poem-inscribed grave marked the passing of a girl who never made it to her fourth birthday.

Another one, enormous and elaborately carved and resting in a wrought-iron-fenced plot of its own, was a monument to a 19th century merchant and his descendants (the latest addition resting there since 1995).

We retired to the Paintworks for drinks and food.  I found it a bit crowded, with the families and children who filled it, the music and the (at times) intense conversation that was drifting over my head, I'm ashamed to say...  Great to stay for the duration this week, to look at other folks' work and to be supportive (tho' coming unstuck on occasions).  Good to see people with more skill than I have, but not to be intimidated by that :)  We ended our spell of drawing with creating lettering for the header that will grace the official website of the group.  Claire hopes to get it animated so that the individual characters shift and change from design to design whilst still spelling out the name of the group.


Oh, one last thing - I've learned that hairspray is a suitable alternative fixer for pencil drawings :) Must get some, my sketches are scruffy enough without them rubbing into each other.