Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-07-26
GQOrtestrr .Qailp Spp.
IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH sTURGF

IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOSEPH SURGE.
1859
In that fair land o'erwatched by Ischias mountains
Across the charmed bay
whose blue waves keep with Capris silver foun-
tains
Perpetual holiday
king lies dead, his wafer duly eaten.
His god-bought masses given;
ANA Komes great altar smokes with gums to sweeten
A name that stinks to Heaven.
And while all Naples thrills with mute tbanksciy-
ing,
The court of England's queen
FOR the dead monster abhorred while living
In mourning garb is seen.
With true sorrow God rebukes that feigning:
by lone Edgbaston's side
Stands great city in the skys sad raining,
Bare-headed and wet-eyed!
Silent, for once, the restless hive of labor
Save the low funeral tread,
Or voice of craftsman whispering to his neighbor
The good deeds of the dead
For him no minister's chant of the immortals
Rose from the lips of sin;
10 mitered priest swung back the heavenly portals
1o let the white soul in
But, Age and Sickness framed their fearful faces
In the low novels door,
And prayers went up from all the dark by-places
And Ghettos ofthe poor
The pald toiler, and the negro chattel,
The yagrant of the street.
The human dice wherewith i'll games of battle
The lords of earth compete,
Touched with grief that needs no outward drapinr
All swelled the long lament
Ofgrateful hearts, instead of marble, shaping
Ills Vlewless monument!
For never yet, with ritual pomp and splendor
In the long heretofore,
heart more loyal, warm and true and tender
has Engiand's turf closed DER.
And if there fell from out her grand old steeples
No crash of brazen wall,
The murmurous of kindredS, tongues and peo-
in on arar,, ro1o
1t came from Holstein,s birchen-beted meadows.
~ . And from the tropic Gains
OF Indian islands in the sun smit shadows
OF occidental palms;
From the locked roadsteads of the Bothnian peas
W here wars worn victims saw his gentle presence
Come sailing Christ-ke, in
10 seek the lost, to build the old waste places
10 link the hostile shores
VI SeYerIng seas, and with Enpland's daisies
The moss of Finand's moors!
Thanks for the good mans beautiful example.
Who in the vilest saw
some sacred ar crypt OF, altar of temple
SUI vocal with Gods law;
And heard, with tender ear, the spirit signing
as from its prison CELL
Praying for pity, like the mournful CRYING
Of Jonah out of hell.
Not his the golden penis or lips persuasion,
But fine sense Of right,
Straight as a line of light
His faith and works like streams that intermingIe
r In the same channel ran;
Inc crystal clearness of an eye kept single
Shamed all the frauds of man
The very gentlest of all human natures
He joined to courage strong,
ana love oureaching unto all q od's creatures
With sturdy hate of wrong.
lender as woman; manliness and meekness
~ In him were so allied
mat they who judged him by his strength or weak
-
Saw but single side.
Men failed, betrayed him. but his zeal seemed nour
ished
a.,, BY failure and by fall;
SUI large faith in human kind he cherished
And in Gods love for ALL
And now he rests: his greatness and his sweetness
No more shall seem at strife,
AND death has nodded into calm completeness
The statue of his lie.
Where the dews glisten and the songbirds MARBLE
Ills dust to dust is laid,
In Natures keeping, with no pomp of marble
10 shame his modest shade
And the cool greenness and tho sta--s- hna~4.
Of earth and heaven above
Reuliiin tho eIrmhals n q life of duty
TRANSPORTED into love. j. G. W.