Joe’s sister, Madge, became a catholic nun and at an early age was sent to Ceylon (Shri Lanka). She only returned to England in the seventies. This poem was written by her to commemorate Joe’s death on his anniversary 25th July 1949 – he would have been 38:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To Our Dear Joseph on his 4th birthday in heaven<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dear loved one! Four long summers past it ended –<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Your pure young life and all our joy in you;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘Mid crash and roar of guns the ocean splendid<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Upon your dying eyes in radiance grew<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Dear is the loss but yours th’ eternal gladness<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Of heaven’s bliss, we mourn not your sweet fate<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n How could we mourn that you have no more sadness?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mourn that you are with Christ emancipate:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ah no! We thank God. He lent you to us:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Your face, your voice, your smile dwell in our mind.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n We will not think of you as gone, but with us,<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n For ever living in our hearts enshrined.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Joe’s sister, Madge, became a catholic nun and at an early age was sent to Ceylon (Shri Lanka). She only returned to England in the seventies. This poem was written by her to commemorate Joe’s death on his anniversary 25th July 1949 – he would have been 38: To Our Dear Joseph on his 4th … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-his-poems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2hero.rpmail.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2hero.rpmail.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2hero.rpmail.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2hero.rpmail.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2hero.rpmail.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ww2hero.rpmail.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190,"href":"https:\/\/ww2hero.rpmail.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127\/revisions\/190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2hero.rpmail.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2hero.rpmail.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2hero.rpmail.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}