Richard Clipston Sturgis Jr.

Who was Richard Clipston Sturgis Jr.?

Richard Clipston Sturgis Jr. was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, the son of noted architect R. Clipston Sturgis. He attended St. Paul's School and Harvard University [1], following in his fathers footsteps became an architect. He died of pneumonia at age thirty in his home in Boston. His untimely death is memorialized in a poem by William Wordsworth engraved in the New Advent Church which his father designed.

THERE was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs

And islands of Winander!--many a time,

At evening, when the earliest stars began

To move along the edges of the hills,

Rising or setting, would he stand alone,

Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake;

Of silence such as baffled his best skill:

Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung

Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise

Has carried far into his heart the voice

Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene

Would enter unawares into his mind

With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,

Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received

Into the bosom of the steady lake.

This boy was taken from his mates, and died

In childhood, ere he was full man.

Pre-eminent in beauty is the vale.