Richard Clipston Sturgis Jr.

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Richard Clipston Sturgis Jr. (1880 - 1910) was born in Brookline, MA, the son of noted architect R. Clipston Sturgis. He attended St. Paul's School ('01) and Harvard University ('04) [1], following in his fathers footsteps became an architect. He died of Pneumonia at age thirty in his home in Boston, MA. His untimely death is memorialized in a poem engraved in the New Advent Church (Boston, MA) 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.

1. Richard Clipston Sturgis Jr. at the archINFORM database