Who e’er has marked thine eye, thy matchless mien, While, all forgetful of the mimic scene, Spurning the formal, manner-taught control, Thou bar’st the fire that lightens in the soul, Has deemed there moved the form that Shakspeare drew From visions bright with passion’s warmest hue, As, wildly garbed in awful tragic guise, MACBETH, OTHELLO, LEAR, he saw arise. When the last outrage of oppression falls On man enthralled by man, and Freedom calls Some champion to flash her steel where’er, Bloody and black, death, shrieking, hovers near, Who can portray like thee the throe of hate Which warns the tyrant of his dreadful fate? Who image forth th’ exalted agony Of strife and maddening hope of victory? There thrills an echo of the pulse, the tone, That universal man exults to own, A voice which teaches craven souls that War For right than guilty Peace is holier far; Nor suffers them to breathe and pass away As dust that ne’er forsook its primal clay. The lines that follow next were printed in 1852, after the divorce trial: TO EDWIN FORREST. In every soul where Poesy and Beauty find a place, Thy image, Forrest, sits enshrined in majesty and grace. Could but the high and mighty bard, whose votary thou art, Have seen with what a matchless power thou swayest the human heart, He too had bowed beneath the spell and owned thy wondrous sway, And bound thy brow with laurel, and with flowers strewn thy way. The clouds of grief that for a time obscured thy brilliant morn, Like to the envious shadows that would dim the rising sun, Meridian’s fame has put to flight. Cast not thy glances back, But in the light of fearless genius hold thine onward track. MARGARET BARNETT. This sonnet was written in the same year: TO EDWIN FORREST. King of the tragic art! without compeer! Thy sway is sovereign in the scenic realm; And where thy sceptre waves, or nods thy helm, All crowd to be thy royal presence near. Thou speakest,—we are stilled; the solemn Past, Rich with grand thought, and filled with noble men Over whose lives and deeds time’s veil is cast, Rises to view, and they do live again! While thou dost tread life’s stage, thy lofty fame, Undimmed, shall grow, and be the drama’s pride Centuries hence, when all shall see thy name Carved deep and high her noblest names beside; And, with the noblest placed, will aye be found, In Thespis’ fane, thy statue, laurel-crowned! R. H. BACON. Here is a tribute penned in 1862, in the midst of our civil war: