Sassoon

Mells

Siegfried Sassoon died in 1967 a week before his eighty-first birthday. He had made it known that when he died he wished to be buried in the church yard at Mells, Somerset, close to the grave of Father Ronald Knox. Knox had been a Roman Catholic priest who preached at the church in Mells and who helped Sassoon to convert to Roman Catholicism.
Siegfried Sassoon's Grave

Left: The grave of Siegfried Loraine Sassoon 1886-1967 R.I.P. I visited the grave in September 2009 and placed a red rose on it. I wanted a flower that was associated with Sassoon and as he had written a poem called “To the Red Rose” I thought it apt.

Right: The grave of Ronald Arbuthnot Knox which reads- ‘Priest scholar preacher & writer he spent the last years of his life in Mells here finished his translation of the bible and here died the 24th August 1957 aged 69 years Pray For His Soul.’
Ronald Knox's Grave

Below: Siegfried Sassoon’s grave standing in the churchyard of St. Andrew’s Church, Mells in Somerset. REST IN PEACE
Sassoon's Grave in the Churchyard
TO THE RED ROSE
Red rose, you have been told
By our transient English tongue
The fame that you enfold:
And to music manifold,
Red rose, you have been sung.
 
All summer in one thought
Tarries by a poet’s tomb
Whose wreath of rhyme has wrought
The rose of Time in bloom.
 
All passion in one power
To know what roses mean
Can dwell; and in one flower
All beauty that has been.
 
So I, in this moment’s gaze,
Your long perfection learn.
Tranced in transfiguring rays,
Red rose, I see you burn.

The picture below was painted by Sassoon’s one time lover, Stephen Tennant for Sassoon’s poem ‘To The Red Rose’ published in 1931.
Red Rose

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