"An Arundel Tomb" is a poem by Philip Larkin, written and published in 1956, and subsequently included in his 1964 collection The Whitsun Weddings. It describes the poet's response to seeing a pair of recumbent medieval tomb effigies with their hands joined in Chichester Cathedral. It is described by James Booth as "one of [Larkin's] greatest poems". It comprises 7 verses of 6 lines each, each with rhyme scheme ABBCAC. The monument The tomb monument in Chichester Cathedral is now widely, though not quite certainly, identified as that of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel (d. 1376) and his second wife, Eleanor of Lancaster (d. 1372). The couple were buried in the chapter house of Lewes Priory, and their monument may have been fashioned by the master mason Henry Yevele: documentary evidence survives relating to the shipping of two "marble" tombs for them in January 1375 from Poole Harbour to London at Yevele's behest. Having first been erected at Lewes Priory, the effigies were probably moved to Chichester following the priory's dissolution in 1537. The earliest certain record of their presence in the cathedral dates...