Ellis, Jonathan


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The Poets of Maine
A Collection of Specimen Poems from over Four Hundred Verse-Makers of the Pine Tree State.
with 
Biographical Sketches
Compiled by George Bancroft Griffith
Portland, Maine
Elwell, Pickard & Company
Transcript Job Print; Edward Smill, Binder.
Copyright by Elwell, Pickard & Co.
1888

page 9-10


Jonathan Ellis.

Rev. Jonathan Ellis was born in Franklin, Connecticut, April 11, 1762.  His father, 
Rev. John Ellis was a chaplain in the Revolutionary War.  The subject of our sketch 
graduated at Yale in 1786, and was ordained over the church and society of the First 
Parish, Topsham, Sept. 16, 1789, and was the first settled minister in Topsham, where he 
remained ten years as pastor, and in various capacities lived in town until 1811.  
He was a member of the original board of overseers of Bowdoin College, the first secretary 
of this board, and a member of the examining committee, until he resigned those offices in 
1811.  He was not only a fine writer and scholar, but a superior Latin scholar, and wrote an 
historical sketch of Topsham, which was printed in the collections of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society.  In Feb., 1800 he delivered an eulogy on Washington in Topsham, from 
which we make the following selection:

EXTRACT FROM AN EULOGY ON GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Ye who have often heard his praises sung,
In strains sublime, by many an abler tongue,
Now hear my death-taught muse her grief impart,
A grief deep felt by every patriot heart.

At your request I tremblingly essay
To follow where so many lead the way,
Columbia mourns; her Washington's no more
To bless with counsel or protect here shore.
Anguish unfeign'd now prompts the willing sigh,
Now tears spontaneous tremble in the eye.

Ages to come shall know the pain we feel;
A thousand bards our cause of grief reveal;
Ages to come while virtue has a friend,
Or all that gives renown on earth shall end,
She'll annual plaints and annual tributes bring,
Rehearse his deeds, or Country's glory sing;
From the fair rising to the setting sun,
Talk o'er this worth, and mourn for Washington.

Ah, who his worth is able to express,
Whom heaven bestowed to save us and to bless?
Had I an hundred mouths, an hundred tongues,
Organs of steel, and adamantine lungs,
Impossible his deeds of worth to name,
Which place him peerless on the roll of fame.