On the edge of Boston Common, near the intersection of Charles and Boylston streets, lies the tomb of a poet celebrated in his own day but since forgotten.

Nothing about the fading family name—SPRAGUE—alerts busy passersby to the resting place of the writer widely known in the middle of the 19th century as the “banker-poet of Boston.” The fact that early reviewers called him a “genius” and predicted that his reputation would last into “perpetuity” makes his descent into obscurity all the more interesting.

Charles Sprague was born in Boston in 1791. He grew up, went to public school, married, and raised a family here. And he died here in 1875, admired as a writer and citizen. A patriot like his father, Samuel Sprague, who participated in the Boston Tea Party, Charles divided his energy between a 46-year-long career at the State and Globe banks and the creation of poems. The seeming incompatibility of finance and poetry was not lost on his contemporaries. As one reviewer noted in 1832, “Many a good business-man … would hear that his son had discovered a taste for poetry with much the same feeling, as if he had heard that he was addicted to drinking.”

Sprague had a talent for composing lofty odes for public occasions, such as a civic holiday or the opening of a theater. Well known for these appearances, he was also praised for poems written not for public recitation but for publication: reflective poems that feature a depth of feeling, clever poems that find humor where possible, and progressive poems that express a sense of social justice. The ode he composed for Boston’s centennial celebration in 1830 moves from the assumption that listeners already oppose slavery to the assertion that they should also be concerned about the plight of Native Americans.

We call them savage—O be just!
Their outraged feelings scan;
A voice comes forth, ’tis from the dust—
The savage was a man!

The manuscripts on display here show a craftsman who composed carefully, even methodically: numbering lines so he could experiment with different sequences, laying out sets of paired rhyming words for consideration. Is this where we see the banker in the poet?

We have taken Sprague up, so to speak, because he deserves to be remembered as a Bostonian of his time, a public voice that helped maintain community spirit, and, even more, as the author of poems we enjoy. We have been struck by the witty banter in “Do, good creatures, send some dinner,” the solemn reflection in “To My Cigar,” the yearning for flight in “The Winged Worshippers,” the appreciation for popular culture in “The Novel Reader,” and the moving empathy of his poems about death.

He signs the never-published family letter-poem “Do, good creatures, send some dinner” (included here) as “Charley Sprague,” a nickname that speaks to the personality of the poet rather than to the formality of the banker seen in his daguerreotype. Perhaps the title “banker-poet” reveals why he was so quickly forgotten: he was thought of as a financier first and a poet second. To the extent that his most distinguishing characteristics became “correctness and good taste,” as one literary critic observed, it’s no wonder that Sprague’s generally proper verse fell out of favor. But if you spend a few minutes with his poems, you may find the man behind both the banker and the poet and never walk so quickly past his tomb again.