Description
Autograph four-line stanza, signed ‘John Monsell’, beginning “Be like a Bird, that for an instant may / Rest on frail boughs …” 4 x 5 inches, in good condition, mounted on part of an old album page. S. Nicholas Rectory, Guildford, undated. Published in Monsell’s book of poems, The Passing Bell (1866). John Samuel Bewley Monsell (1811 – 1875), Irish Anglican clergyman and poet. John Monsell became influenced by the Oxford Movement and an admirer of Edward Bouverie Pusey, and also became acquainted with William Ewart Gladstone, with whom he maintained a correspondence.