To the Memory

OF

Percy Bysshe Shelley,

BY

Charles W. Frederickson.

    Amid the ruins of majestic Rome,
    That told the story of its countless years,
    I stood, and wondered by the silent dust
    Of the “Eternal Child.”  Oh, Shelley! 
    To me it was not given to know thy face,
    Save through the mirrored pages of thy works;
    Those whisper’d words of wood and wave, are to mine ears,
    Sweet as the music of ocean’s roar, that breaks on sheltered shores. 
    Thy sterner words of Justice, Love and Truth,
    Will to the struggling soul a beacon prove,
    And barrier against the waves of tyranny and craft. 
    Then rest, “Cor Cordium,” and though thy life
    Was brief in point of years, its memory will outlive
    The column’d monuments around thy tomb.

* * * * *

New York, Nov. 25, 1875.

My dear Sotheran:—­

The copy of the lines on our Beloved-Poet, which you requested, are entirely at your service—­make what use of them you please.

Yours, sincerely,

C.W.  Frederickson.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, AS A PHILOSOPHER AND REFORMER.

A paper read before the new York liberal club, on Friday, August 6th, 1875.

    “Let us see the Truth, whatever that may be.”—­Shelley, 1822.

Mr. Vice-President and Members of the Liberal Club: 

“The Blood of the Martyr is the Seed of the Church.”  Persecution ever fails in accomplishing its desired ends, and as a rule lays the foundations broad and deep for the triumph of the objects of and principles inculcated by the persecuted.

Driven from their homes by fanatical tyranny, not permitted to worship as they thought fit, a band of noble and earnest, yet on some points mistaken men, were, a little over two hundred and fifty years ago, landed on this continent from the good ship “Mayflower.”  The “Pilgrim Fathers” were, in their native land, refused liberty of conscience and freedom of discussion; their apparent loss was our gain, for if it had not been for that despotism, and the corresponding re-action, which made those stern old zealots give to others many of the inalienable rights of liberty denied to themselves, you and I could not to-night perhaps be allowed to meet face to face, without fear, to discuss metaphysical and social questions in their broadest aspects, without the civil or theological powers intervening to close our mouths.