Lines Suggested by the Third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science Held at Cambridge, in June, 1833. By the late William Sotheby ... With a Short Memoir of his Life |
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TO THE REV. PETER ELMSLEY. |
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 | Lines Suggested by the Third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science |  |
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TO THE REV. PETER ELMSLEY.
Elmsley! with thy lone hour the Grecian museHolds nightly commerce, and to Isis' shore
Brings the fair fruits the groves of Athens bore,
When Plato, nurtur'd with Castalian dews,
The bloom of fancy, gave, to moral truth:
And now she leads her Bacchic choir along,
To thee, forth pouring the full tide of song;
All, daring Æschylus in fire of youth
Feared not to utter! All of truer tone—
More artful harmony—that sweetly floats
Tempering the swell of Sophoclean notes,—
To thee the strains where nature speaks alone
And language breathes the echo of the heart
When He, whom fancy, love, and pity crown'd
Drew from his chord each passion's simple sound:
These all are thine!—These to the world impart,
But be it mine in this sequester'd bower,
Here as I turn the page of memory o'er,
To dwell on deeds, untaught by classic lore,
And back recal thy kindness at that hour
When, as the rumour reach'd thy distant way,
That misery had sore bow'd us, thou wert seen,—
As though thy foot had never absent been—
Seen at our side, commission'd to allay
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And when methought o'er death we hopeless hung
Thy look, thy word, thy faith, forbade despair
And grief found language when a friend wept there.
| Lines Suggested by the Third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science | |