Monument

HWW everyone.

This is a wall of Prospect Cottage in Dungeness, Kent, which was the home of the artist, gardener, designer and film maker, Derek Jarman between 1986 and his death in 1994. The cottage is also the home of Derek Jarman’s garden in the shingle close to the beach at Dungeness and in the shadow of the nuclear power station. This garden is wonderfully sparse and is well worth your time if you visit. Be warned, however; it is not the lush, regimented growth of a formal plantation; rather it was made by a man who used its creation for his own therapy when he was desperately ill and thus it reflects both his vision and the landscape in which it appears.

On the wall, the first stanza and the last six lines of the poem “The Sunne Rising” by the 17th century poet, John Donne appear, created by hand carved wooden letters affixed to the timber of the cottage wall.

My picture does Prospect Cottage and the carving scant justice, my skills being insufficient for the task. It does, however, show what is a fine and much admired project by a fine and much admired artist. The book “Derek Jarman’s Garden”, published by Thames & Hudson, is worth reading and has some wonderful photographs by Howard Sooley.

The extract from "The Sunne Rising" is below. The spelling is the original 17th century style; modern versions are readily available on the internet.

Perhaps more clear if the picture is enlarged by pressing Z.

Busie olde foole, unruly Sunne;
Why dost thou thus,
Through windowes, and through curtaines call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers seasons run?
Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide
Late schoole boyes, and sowre prentices,
Goe tell Court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,
Call countrey ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clyme,
Nor houres, dayes, months, which are the rags of time.

Thou sunne art halfe as happy as wee,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age askes ease, and since thy duties bee
To warme the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art every where;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy spheare.

John Donne published “The Sunne Rising” in 1633.