Friday 4 January 2008

Ebeneezer Elliott: poet of Rotherham and Sheffield


There is an interesting piece in The Library Campaigner (Winter 2007-8 No 75, p14) about how the Friends of Rotherham Central Library became interested in the local poet Ebenezer Elliott (1781-1849). Elliott was an ordinary half-educated man who believed passionately in the value of learning and self-improvement. He was an advocate of free libraries and took the lead in the setting up of a reading room for members of the Sheffield Mechanics Institute. He even donated 22 of his own books to help start the project. Keith Morris, a retired librarian from Sheffield Libraries and editor of the Friends newsletter has a website about the life and works of the poet.

Sonnet 28
We are not lonely, Kinderscout! I stand
Here, with thy sire, and gaze, with him and thee,
On desolation. This is liberty!
I want no wing, to lift me from the land,
But look, soul-fetter’d, on the wild and grand.
Oh! that the dungeon’d of the earth were free
As these fix’d rocks, whose summits bare command
Yon cloud to stay, and weep for Man, with me!
Is this, then, solitude? To feel our hearts
Lifted above the world, yet not above
The sympathies of brotherhood and love?
To grieve for him who from the right departs?
And strive, in spirit, with the martyr’d good?
“Is this to be alone?” Then, welcome solitude.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Carl said...

I think the above post is spam. I ran it through one of the translation services that I mentioned in am earlier post and it reads (from Portugese)
I liked very much it was giving post and his blog is very interesting, I am always going to pass this way =) Then it calls in there at my site, which is on the CresceNet, I wait what likes. His address is http: // www.provedorcrescenet.com. An embrace.

CresceNet is a Brazillian internet provider