Francis Thompson was born on 18 December 1859 in Preston, Lancashire, and died in London on 13 November 1907. His life has often been told as a dramatic Victorian parable: the devout doctor’s son who failed at the professions chosen for him, fell into homelessness and opium dependence in London, and was rescued into literary recognition by sympathetic Catholic publishers. There is truth in that narrative, but it can…
“The Church, which was once the mother of poets no less than of saints, during the last two centuries has relinquished to aliens the chief glories of poetry, if the chief glories of holiness she has preserved for her own.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Symbolist Poets
Emotional landscape: Fear, Tenderness, Longing
Henry Scott Holland was born on 27 January 1847 at Ledbury, Herefordshire, into a world of Anglican privilege, classical education, and public duty. He died on 17 March 1918 in Oxford, at the close of a life spent attempting to make Christianity answerable to the moral crises of modern society. He was not, in the ordinary sense, a poet: he did not build his reputation through volumes of verse, nor did he belong to th…
“Death is nothing at all. It matters not. I have only slipped away into the next room.”
Neighbourhood:
Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Spirituality, Tenderness
