Ebenezer Elliott - Epitaph

Epitaph

Towards the end of his life, Elliott suffered much pain and depression. His thoughts often turned to his own death and he wrote his own epitaph:

The Poet's Epitaph

Stop, Mortal! Here thy brother lies,

The Poet of the Poor

His books were rivers, woods and skies,

The meadow and the moor,

His teachers were the torn hearts’ wail,

The tyrant, and the slave,

The street, the factory, the jail,

The palace – and the grave!

The meanest thing, earth’s feeblest worm,

He fear’d to scorn or hate;

And honour’d in a peasant’s form

The equal of the great.

But if he loved the rich who make

The poor man’s little more,

Ill could he praise the rich who take

From plunder’d labour’s store

A hand to do, a head to plan,

A heart to feel and dare –

Tell man’s worst foes, here lies the man

Who drew them as they are.

After his death, John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem in his memory, titled Elliott.

A bronze statue of Elliott by Neville Northey Burnard, paid for by the people of Sheffield and Rotherham, was erected in 1854 in Sheffield market-place at a cost of £600. The statue was moved to Weston Park, Sheffield, in 1874, where it remains.