Marcus Aurelius Root
1864
Judge Conrad "Sonnet on Root's Daguerreotype of Mr. Forrest"
Google Books
M.A. Root, The Camera and the Pencil; or the Heliographic Art…, (Philadelphia: M.A. Root, 1864), p.162.
 
* As apropos to the subject I am discussing, I trust I may be pardoned for introducing here the opinion of a connoisseur and a poet, (the late Judge Conrad) upon the expressiveness of a heliograph. It is entitled
 
SONNET
ON ROOT'S DAGUERREOTYPE OP MR. FORREST.
 
"Light-born and limned by Heaven! It is no cheat,
  No image; but himself, his living shade!
With hurried pulse the heart leaps forth to greet
  The man, who merits more than Tully said
Of his own Roscius, that the histrion's power
  Was but a leaf amid his garland wreath ;
His swaying spirit ruled the magic hour,
  But his vast virtues knew no day, no death.
He seems not now, but is. And I do know,
  Or think I do, what meaning from those lips
Would break; and on that bold and manly brow
  There hangs a light, that knows not an eclipse,
The light of a true soul. If art can give
  The bodied soul this life, who doubts the soul will live?
 
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