POETICAL ADDRESSES of George Alfred Townsend
E.F. Bonaventure & Co., New York, 1881

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Poem at Dickinson College, 1881, page 5
State Press Association Poem, Rochester, 1879, page 14
Prologue at Pope's Theatre, St. Louis, 1879, page 24 (SEE EXCERPT BELOW)
Poem at Delaware College Commencement, 1868, page 27
Poem at Georgetown, Delaware, 1880, page 34

EXCERPT of PROLOGUE - Delivered at the Opening of Pope's New Theatre, (Formerly a Unitarian Church) September 22, 1879, St.Louis, Missouri

Within these walls a teacher might impart
The rise and progress of dramatic art,
Since Thespis, with one actor and a choir,
To Shakespeare and his myriad world entire:
Here by the hour the priest performed the show
To passive singers and the organs slow, -
A second actor Aeshylus allows,
And lo! The church becomes a social house.

So gods draw down as men in culture are defer,
Learned human nature in the theatre,
Came to the door at some good patron's beck,
And held a horse, perhaps to get a check;
Peeping within, upon his soul was born
Imagination like a tropic morn;
Unfettered by the laws a Bacon knew,
Or social bonds a courtier Sydney drew;
His mind was wanton as a lover's dream,
And ventured, heedless, into every theme;
The age scarce knew him till his end had come,
Cut off in drinking with a writing chum.
Unspoiled by fame, down after centuries ran
The lengthening shadow of Natural Man!