"To the Possessor of this Book in the year 1965...", Samuel Finley Breese Morse, March 1815

In this holograph by morse, the poem, of morse's own composition, dominates the page. The knight at the head of the poem gestures toward the distant future of 1965, where morse imagines a reader so remote in time as to have neither form nor gender. His lofty tone and decorous call to virtue in his "strange uncreate" audience evoke sentiments similar to west's dedicatory inscription "to the youths of the united states of america. ". Date: March 1815. Place of creation: New York, New York, USA. Dimensions: height: 27 cm (10.6 in); width: 17.2 cm (6.7 in). Medium: ink on paper. Collection: Walters Art Museum. Samuel Finley Breese Morse - "To the Possessor of this Book in the year 1965" - Walters 371536