Compare Poets

Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.

Poet A

Sir Henry Taylor

Poet B

Alfred Austin

Compare two related contemporaries

A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.

Kindred spirits

Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.

Biography 74% Poems 85% Blended 79%

Swap sides Another related pair

Sir Henry Taylor

18 October 1800 – 27 March 1886 (~86)

2 live poems · English

Sir Henry Taylor occupies one of the more curious niches in nineteenth-century English letters: a poet who spent his working life not in garrets or universities but behind the desk of a government office, quietly shaping the administration of Britain's colonies while writing, in his spare hours, verse dramas that made him, for a brief and dazzling season, one of the most celebrated writers in the land. He was born on…

“Shy and proud men are more liable than any others to fall into the hands of parasites and creatures of low character. For in the intimacies which are formed by shy men, they do not choose, but are chosen.”

Neighbourhood: Dramatic Poets, Edwardian Poets, Victorian Poets

Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Sorrow, Spirituality

Listen Timeline Affinities

Alfred Austin

30 May 1835 – 2 June 1913 (~78)

17 live poems · English

Alfred Austin was born on 30 May 1835 at Headingley, then a village just outside Leeds in Yorkshire, and died on 2 June 1913 at Ashford, Kent. For seventeen years, from 1896 until his death, he held the conspicuous and difficult office of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. Yet his name has endured less securely than those of the poets who preceded and surrounded him. To later readers, Austin has often appeared chie…

“Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things, and I'll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things.”

Neighbourhood: Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets

Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness

Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Sir Henry Taylor

Alfred Austin

1800 1913

They overlapped for 52 years (1835–1886). When Alfred Austin was born, Sir Henry Taylor was about 35. Alfred Austin was about 51 when Sir Henry Taylor died.

Sir Henry Taylor in history Alfred Austin in history Years they were given

On the map

About 98 km separate Bishop Middleham, County Durham, England from Leeds, Yorkshire, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

Sir Henry Taylor

Alfred Austin

Open both on the History Atlas

Themes they return to

Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.

Shared

life beauty

Sir Henry Taylor only

self heart elena social maid wife loss sickness illness soul

Alfred Austin only

love death world nature winter beloved autumn mortality light spring seasons season

From the biographies

Sir Henry Taylor: bishop middleham, county durham, george taylor, sir james stephen, philip van artevelde, isaac comnenus, edwin the fair, the virgin widow. Alfred Austin: headingley, leeds, poet laureate, the garden that i love, the tower of babel, savonarola, stonyhurst college, lord salisbury.

Poems that secretly rhyme

The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.

Elena's Song

Sir Henry Taylor

79%

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Nightingale and Cuckoo

Alfred Austin

Elena's Song

Sir Henry Taylor

78% life

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Go talk to her, sweet flower

Alfred Austin

Soft be the voice

Sir Henry Taylor

78% beauty

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An Answer

Alfred Austin

Soft be the voice

Sir Henry Taylor

77%

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When Acorns Fall

Alfred Austin

Soft be the voice

Sir Henry Taylor

77%

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Go talk to her, sweet flower

Alfred Austin

Elena's Song

Sir Henry Taylor

77%

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Love's Unity

Alfred Austin

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1836 Publication of 'Nature'

1837 Publication of 'Life of Sir Walter Scott'

1842 First Pale Lager Brewed in Pilsen

1845 Great Famine in Ireland (1845)

1845 The Outbreak of the Irish Potato Famine

1845 Thoreau's Walden Experiment Begins

1846 Publication of Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

1846 Thoreau's Arrest for Civil Disobedience

Sir Henry Taylor

1824 Clerkship at the Colonial Office

1825 Death of Siblings

1834 Publication of 'Philip van Artevelde'

1839 Marriage to Mary Anne

1842 Publication of 'A Sicilian Story'

1849 Publication of 'The Statesman'

1868 Knighthood

1884 Final Publication: 'The Fall of Jerusalem'

Alfred Austin

1846 Education at Stonyhurst College

1858 Publication of 'Five Years of It'

1867 Marriage to Frances Mary Wellesley

1894 Publication of 'The Garden That I Love'

1896 Appointment as Poet Laureate

1900 Publication of 'The Poetry of the Period'

1908 Publication of 'The Human Tragedy' (Poetic Version)

1913 Death of Alfred Austin

Emotional landscapes

Sir Henry Taylor: Tenderness, Sorrow, Spirituality. Alfred Austin: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness.

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Compare Poets

Poet A

Poet B

Sir Henry Taylor

Alfred Austin

In time

On the map

Sir Henry Taylor

Alfred Austin

Themes they return to

Shared

Sir Henry Taylor only

Alfred Austin only

From the biographies

Poems that secretly rhyme

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Sir Henry Taylor

Alfred Austin

Emotional landscapes