Categorized | Local, News, Poems, Regional

ANTIGUA REMEMBERS PRINCE RAMSEY

Howard Fergus

The farewell service for the Prince of Antigua

as inspiring to behold and to hear,

as witness after witness testified freely

of his graciousness, greatness and loving care

with hyperboles plenty, without a false note.

They lifted up Dr. Ramsey, heavier and larger

than life, man among men, healer and friend,

and all Antigua lifted up the chorus: Amen.

Versatile and versed in whatever endeavour:

writing calypso, slamming dominoes,

ministering to AIDS, he shunned the mediocre,

only excellence goes.

But for his poignant strain, “man is nothing but dust”,

melodiously mouthed by De Bear,

I did not know him in life, but they washed his wear

and hung then on the line at St. John the Divine

in St. John’s today, and he smelled clean.

In spite of his doleful philosophy of dust,

his sights on glory seem eternally just.

Antigua played him fair with a riot of love,

a forest of flowers decorated the hearse;

as his sun sank in flooding light,

the good and great gave silent cheer

along with the little people, subjects of his care.

The smart of soldiers adorned the ceremony

as becomes a Prince on the highest rung,

a colossus of home-grown royalty

whose deeds deserve a golden song.

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A Moment with the Registrar of Lands

Howard Fergus

The farewell service for the Prince of Antigua

as inspiring to behold and to hear,

as witness after witness testified freely

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of his graciousness, greatness and loving care

with hyperboles plenty, without a false note.

They lifted up Dr. Ramsey, heavier and larger

than life, man among men, healer and friend,

and all Antigua lifted up the chorus: Amen.

Versatile and versed in whatever endeavour:

writing calypso, slamming dominoes,

ministering to AIDS, he shunned the mediocre,

only excellence goes.

But for his poignant strain, “man is nothing but dust”,

melodiously mouthed by De Bear,

I did not know him in life, but they washed his wear

and hung then on the line at St. John the Divine

in St. John’s today, and he smelled clean.

In spite of his doleful philosophy of dust,

his sights on glory seem eternally just.

Antigua played him fair with a riot of love,

a forest of flowers decorated the hearse;

as his sun sank in flooding light,

the good and great gave silent cheer

along with the little people, subjects of his care.

The smart of soldiers adorned the ceremony

as becomes a Prince on the highest rung,

a colossus of home-grown royalty

whose deeds deserve a golden song.