The parish was shocked and saddened by the news of the sudden deaths of both Eliza and Roy Baldwin. At their respective funerals the following poems seemed to say so much about each of them:
Roy Baldwin:
‘What is Success?’ by Ralph Waldo Emerson
To laugh often and love much,
to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children,
to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of
false friends,
to appreciate beauty,
to find the best in others,
to give of one’s self,
to leave the world a little better, whether by a healthy child, a garden
patch or a redeemed social condition,
to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation,
to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived,
this is to have succeeded.
Eliza Willink:
from Prelude by William Wordsworth
I held unconscious intercourse with beauty
Old as creation, drinking in a pure
Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths
Of curling mist, or from the level plain
Of waters coloured by impending clouds.
The sands of Westmorland, the creeks and bays
Of Cumbria’s rocky limits, they can tell
How, when the Sea threw off his evening shade,
And to the shepherd’s hut on distant hills
Sent welcome notice of the rising moon,
How I have stood, to fancies such as these
A stranger, linking with the spectacle
No conscious memory of a kindred sight,
And bringing with me no peculiar sense
Of quietness or peace; yet have I stood,
Even while mine eye hath moved o’er many a league
Of shining water, gathering as it seemed,
Through every hair-breadth in that field of light,
New pleasure like a bee among the flowers.
In Memory