Juliana Mary Louisa Probyn, known as May Probyn (12 April 1856 – 29 March 1909) was an English poet, one of a group of lively and somewhat political British fin de siècle poets.[1]
She was born in Avranches, France.[2] Her parents were the writer John Webb Probyn and Mary Christiana née Spicer;[3] and the novelist and short-story writer Sophie Dora Spicer Maude was a cousin.[4] She was the first love of William Satchell,[5] who published the first two of her three books of poetry. She published a novel in 1878,[6] and became a Catholic convert in 1883.[7] Among her friends were W. B. Yeats,[5] Thomas Westwood, the fishing writer,[8] Vernon Lee,[9] and Katharine Tynan, with whom in 1895 she published Christmas Verses, consisting of four poems by Probyn and two by Tynan.[7]
Probyn is buried in St Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church, Mortlake.[10][11] Her grave is inscribed 'That, being dead to this world, she may live to thee'.
A number of Probyn's poems have been set to music, including "Vilanelle" by Jacques Blumenthal in 1899[12] and "Come What Will, You Are Mine To-day" by Henry Kimball Hadley in 1909.[13]
Works
- Once! Twice! Thrice! and Away! A Novel. (1878)
- Robert Tresilian. A Story (1880)
- Who Killed Cock Robin? (1880)
- Poems (1881)
- A Ballad of the Road, and Other Poems (1883)
- Pansies: A Book of Poems (1895)
Her poem "Is it nothing to you" is in the Oxford Book of English Verse.[14]
References
Sources
- "May Probyn", in Thesing, William B. Victorian Women Poets, 1998. Volume 199 of the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
External links
- Works by or about May Probyn at Internet Archive
- Works by May Probyn at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Poems
- Pansies
