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Mary Anne Rawson's The Bow in the Cloud (1834): A Scholarly Edition

Conder, Eliza

Name ID: https://hymnary.org/person/Conder_JE1

Born: 1785

Died: 1877

Faith: Congregationalist

Note: Joan Elizabeth Thomas (Eliza Thomas) was born on 6 April 1785, in Hammersmith, Lodon. She was the daughter of Roger Thomas and granddaughter of the sculptor, L. F. Roubiliac. She married Josiah Conder on 8 February 1815, in Battersea. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 1 daughter. Conder contributed poems to The Associate Minstrels, 1810, under the signature "E."; to her husband's work, The Star in the East, 1824, anonymously; to the Congregational Hymn Book, 1836, in her own name; and to The Choir and Oratory, 1837, with an asterisk (John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)). She died in 1877, in Lewisham, London, England, at the age of 92.

This page is referenced by:

The Birthright of Britons, by Eliza Conder

----

"With a great sum obtained I this freedom."
"But I was free born."

----

Explore the wide Atlantic;
And thrid with every breeze
The southern isles romantic,
That stud Pacific seas;

Their coralline recesses,
Which break the ocean-calm,
And reefs that Nature dresses
With crests of feathery palm.

Speed o'er the bounding surges
That sweep the summer-zone;
The depths the sea-tide merges,
The steeps its waves enthrone:

The gardens ever-flowering,
That plant the Indian wave,
With spicy shades embowering
The soil its waters lave:

Where crowns and thrones barbaric
In orient splendour shine;
Or sceptred realms Tartaric
Exhaust the jewelled mine:

The regions incense-breathing,
Where pearly billows sleep,
In caves of Ormus wreathing
Tiaras for the deep:

The groves whose clusters pendent
The wealth of commerce hold;
And sunny climes resplendent
With Afric's pliant gold.

Could all their bright profusion
In one vast altar rise,
Here in our green seclusion,
A richer dowry lies.

For England holds a treasure,
Than all their glorious spoil
More costly beyond measure: --
The freedom of her soil.

This, this she cannot barter
For wealth of land or sea;
But sends her royal charter,
To set the captive free.

O bright and blessed mission!
When shall her sails convey
The tidings of fruition,
For sickening Hope's delay?

The voice of intercession
Through all our land and that pleads,
Abjures the long oppression,
Whose final moment speeds.

Our oaken forests weaving
The garland of the sea,
Whose billows proudly heaving,
Bear freedom, from the free;

Shall boast a name more glorious,
More fraught with deathless fame,
Than all their fleets victorious
In battled line may claim.

Our flags that yielded never,
But to the tempest's sway, --
Our prows that boldly sever
The ocean's pathless way, --

As borne on wings angelic,
Shall waft the blest release:
Not sealed till every relic
Of Afric's bondage cease.

Their course o'er rock and shallow,
Awaits a prospering gale.
That course may Justice hallow,
And Heaven direct the sail!

Eliza Conder.

Watford,
May, 1833.
Sonnet, by Eliza Conder

----
These lines refer to a well-attested circumstance which occurred in Egypt.
----

With speed as of the ocean-wind there fled
A shuddering captive from the impending stroke,
Whose lash adds scorpions to the bondsman's yoke;
And, gaining on his wild, despairing tread,
That scorpion-lash was near. No pity woke
For thee, lost fugitive! No refuge led
To hope: there was no mercy to invoke;
Nor faith for thee her sanctuary spread.
Even at that latest moment, in his path,
A child whose form the hues of England wore,
The fainting victim saw. He stooped and bore
Him in his arms: --then faced the avenger's wrath.
His tyrants owned the eloquent appeal;
And, with his pardon, stamped on Britain's power the seal.

Eliza Conder,

Watford.

This page references:

Congregationalist