If you are walking or running on the Blackstone Boulevard path and enjoying the fall foliage, take a look at the Spirit of Youth statue (near Clarendon Avenue). You may notice more sheen than before. On Thursday, October 19, you may have seen a knowledgeable artist, Calvin Hubbard from Buccacio Sculpture Services, work on the statue. He performed a thorough cleaning, touched up a few rough spots, and rewaxed. She is now ready to face winter.The bronze sculpture, A Memorial to Young Womanhood (or The Spirit of Youth), memorializes the spirit of youth and Constance Witherby (1913-1929), who died of heart failure following a summer climb in the Swiss Alps. While a student at Lincoln School, she began to write poetry. Her posthumously published collection, Sunshine & Stardust, is her remarkable legacy.
The statue’s granite pedestal quotes the last four verses of her poem “Oh, to feel the winds rush by”:
Oh, to feel the winds rush by
With the crash and dash of the sea,
And to hear the seagulls cry
All plaintively calling for me,
Just on high note
Ringing and free
Borne on the wave
Eternity.
Oh, to hear the tall trees bend
In the rush and push of the air,
And to be in that bird’s nest
A-swingin and saying up there.
With slender grace
The lithe tree bends,
Singing a song
That never ends.
Oh, to hear the whistle shrill
And the moan and groan of its tune
In the shadow by the arch,
In the winter dark of the moon.
A fitful gust,
An eerie song,
Rise and fall
All the night long.
Oh, to feel the mighty throb,
Of the free, and see the great wind,
And to know that even I
Am now a brother of his kind.
The wind roars by,
I feel it blow
And know that I
Am free to go.
