Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· Literature,
Principally Belletristic .
Quite characteristic are the particular lines of his other poems and the
prose of his diary in the pondering over who is predestined to death eternal
and who to salvation.133
Longer and more ambitious is a poem dated June 9, 1751, "On hearing
of the Rev. Mr. Samuel Blair's desperate Illness by common Fame, and
Letters from Correspondents in Pennsylvania." This meditative poem an­
ticipates the approaching dissolution of his old friend and mentor but in­
cludes a prayer that Blair may recover. The mortuary details, of deathbed
and grave, place this poem much nearer the Puritan funeral elegy than
any that one meets earlier in the southern colonies. The 165-plus lines of
dignified couplets are clustered in stanzas of varying length.
Soon afterward Davies received definite news of Blair's death on July 5,
1751, and probably immediately sat down to compose "Elegiac Verses on
the lamented Death of the Rev. Mr. Samuel Blair," though he did not in­
clude it in his Miscellaneous Poems, which may already have been in press.
The "Elegiac Verses" in its 318 lines enumerates its subject'S earthly ac­
complishments and depicts his triumphant entrance into heaven. In lan­
guage and tone it is a mixture of the classical and the biblical. For example,
Hark! a long doleful Euho round me groans,
Heard by deaf Rocks, and felt by senseless Stones.
The sympathizing Hills of Zion toss,
The mournful Euho, and lament the loss.
Davies goes on to picture Blair in his study, as a student of science and
philosophy, as a pulpit orator scourging and comforting sinners, altogether
the glory of his profession. Milton's "Lycidas," the eighteenth-century
Pindaric ode and couplet, and Davies' own deep personal feeling supply
some of the elements of this stately elegy. Its sincerity so outweighs its
poetic cliches that it produces a deep impression.134
On Tuesday, November 13, 1753, Davies wrote in his diary that his
"worthy Friend Mrs. Dushane" had asked him to write an epitaph for the
tombstone of her recently deceased sister. Though he had neither the time
nor the energy, he notes, he composed three epitaphs from which the lady
might choose. The first is representative :
Does Beauty spread her Charms? Does Wealth o'erflow?
Does Health Bloom fresh, or youthful Vigour glow?
Are all Earth's Blessings in Profusion pour'd?
And all these Sweets with no Affiiction sour'd.
Ah! trust not these, to guard from early Death
All these adorn'd the precious Dust beneath.13s
Robert Bolling of Chellowe (1738-1 775 ), whose poems are now being
edited primarily from original manuscripts, in his short life published a