Category: Poetry

Sonnets of a Little Girl, VIII, by Ernest Dowson

Dowson's vandalised grave
Dowson’s vandalised grave (from Find A Grave)

I present now the last of the 8 “Sonnets of a Little Girl.” This 8th one is not about childhood, there is no little girl in it; it rather tells about disappointment and death. A modified version of it, with the title “Epilogue,” appeared in The Savoy, No. 7, November 1896, page 87. With the title “A Last Word,” it was included as the last poem in verse in Dowson’s final collection Decorations: in Verse and Prose, published in December 1899, two months before his death. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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Drifting Down, by Joseph Ashby-Sterry

Harry Furniss - Joseph Ashy-Sterry
Harry Furniss – Joseph Ashy-Sterry (c.1910) – National Portrait Gallery, NPG 6251

The poems from Boudoir Ballads that we presented have shown the persistent love of Ashby-Sterry for young girls. But the poet had another passion: rivers, boats and rowing. In 1913 he published The River Rhymer, a collection of verse on this topic.

Some of his poems combine both passions, for instance a few ones in Boudoir Ballads told about a young girl loved on a river. I have thus selected three love poems from The River Rhymer, here is my first one: CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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To a Child of Quality, by Matthew Prior

Thomas Hudson - Matthew Prior
Thomas Hudson – Matthew Prior – National Portrait Gallery, NPG 562

Matthew Prior (1664-1721) was an English poet and diplomat, whose poetry knew fame at the beginning of the 18th century. One of his most famous poems is “To a Child of Quality, Five Years Old, The Author Forty” (1704). Requested to write his love for a 5 years old little girl, he complies, but she cannot read his poems, she plays with the paper on which they are written; when she will reach an age where she can understand them, he will be too old for love. Indeed, as writes Prior’s biography by the Poetry Foundation: CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

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