There is a Heav’n: at least on earth below:

It is where scholars read and thinkers brood:

For crowns and halos volumes in a row

For angels’ wings it has its gown and hood.

In that seraphic choir see Ellis sit!

With that Elys-ian light his numbers glow:

The scholar’s seriousness, the scholar’s wit,

Twin spirits in alternate ebb and flow.^[1]

Studious and silent he has read life’s page,

Scholar and chemist he sees part and whole;

Teaching and thought let loose his noble rage

And stir the genial current of his soul.

His golden rod absorbs our meaner staves

As Aaron’s rod the rods of Phara-oh,

Or as New Brunswick’s river-name outbraves^[2]

The pious Jordan of Ontario.

His May-blossoms relieve our strenuous May,

Our evening smoke curls bluer as we read,

The earliest pipe of half-awakened day

Draws a new fragrance from his choicer weed.

His artless puff-balls have a tale to tell,

His Flora opens treasures new and old,

His way-side weeds have been our asphodel^[3]

His “dandy lines” become our “harmless gold.”^[4]