Grave
He is remembered because of the elaborate grave, consisting of painted headstone and footstone, in the churchyard of St Mary’s in Henbury, which is a grade II listed building. Both stones feature black cherubs and the footstone bears the unusual epitaph:
- I who was Born a PAGAN and a SLAVE
- Now sweetly sleep a CHRISTIAN in my Grave
- What tho' my hue was dark my SAVIOR'S sight
- Shall Change this darkness into radiant Light
- Such grace to me my Lord on earth has given
- To recommend me to my Lord in heaven
- Whose glorious second coming here I wait
- With saints and Angels him to celebrate
It is thought that 10,000 black slaves and servants were in Britain in the early 18th century, but this is one of the very few memorials to them. Curiously, there is no record of his burial in the church registers.
Read more about this topic: Scipio Africanus (slave)
Famous quotes containing the word grave:
“Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea.
And the hunter home from the hill.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
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—Orson Welles (1915–1984)