William Force Stead was an American diplomat and poet, who became an Anglican clergyman and chaplain

Chaplain

Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...

 of Worcester College, Oxford

Worcester College, Oxford

Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in the eighteenth century, but its predecessor on the same site had been an institution of learning since the late thirteenth century...

. He is best known for his editorial work on Christopher Smart

Christopher Smart

Christopher Smart , also known as "Kit Smart", "Kitty Smart", and "Jack Smart", was an English poet. He was a major contributor to two popular magazines and a friend to influential cultural icons like Samuel Johnson and Henry Fielding. Smart, a high church Anglican, was widely known throughout...

.

He was born in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 and educated at the University of Virginia

University of Virginia

The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

. He left the U.S. consular service around 1917 and was a student at Queen's College, Oxford, publishing verses in Oxford poetry. He was ordained and spent time in Italy, before returning to Oxford and Worcester College as a Fellow.

He was a friend of T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...

, and close to him at the time of his 1927 religious conversion.

He returned to an academic position in the USA in 1939. He died in Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...

.

Works

• Moonflowers (1909)
• Windflowers (1911)
• Holy Innocents (1917)
• Verd Antique (1920)
• The Sweet Miracle (1922)
• Wayfaring (1924)
• Uriel: A Hymn in Praise of Divine Immanence (1933)
• Rejoice in the lamb
  Rejoice in the Lamb
  Rejoice in the Lamb is a festival cantata for four soloists, SATB choir, and organ composed by Benjamin Britten in 1943 and based on the poem Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart . The poem, written while Smart was in an insane asylum, is a highly idiosyncratic and ecstatic praise and worship of God...
  
  : a song from Bedlam by Christopher Smart (1939) editor

See also

• Peter Force
  Peter Force
  Peter Force was a 19th-century politician, newspaper editor, archivist, and historian.Born near the Passaic Falls in New Jersey, to William, a soldier in the Civil War and descendant of French Huguenots who arrived on America's shores in the 17th century, and Sarah Force , Force grew up New Paltz,...