Poetry Codex

Victorian

Austin Dobson

1840–1921

Austin Dobson (1840–1921) was an English poet and man of letters who spent his working life as a clerk in the Board of Trade. In his spare hours he became the chief English master of light verse and of the French fixed forms — the rondeau, ballade, triolet and villanelle — which he handled with polish and wit.

He was also a respected biographer and essayist of the eighteenth century, writing lives of Hogarth, Fielding and Goldsmith, among others. His Collected Poems appeared in 1895.

Poems (117)

  1. For Old Sake's Sake
  2. At the Sign of the Lyre
  3. The Ladies of St. James's
  4. The Old Sedan Chair
  5. To an Intrusive Butterfly
  6. The Curé's Progress
  7. The Masque of the Months
  8. Two Sermons
  9. The Carver and the Caliph
  10. To an Unknown Bust in the British Museum
  11. Molly Trefusis
  12. At the Convent Gate
  13. The Milkmaid
  14. An Old Fish Pond
  15. An Eastern Apologue
  16. To a Missal of the Thirteenth Century
  17. A Revolutionary Relic
  18. A Madrigal
  19. A Song to the Lute
  20. A Garden Song
  21. A Chapter of Froissart
  22. To the Mammoth-Tortoise of the Mascarene Islands
  23. A Roman "Round-Robin"
  24. Verses to Order
  25. A Legacy
  26. "Little Blue-Ribbons"
  27. Lines to a Stupid Picture
  28. A Fairy Tale
  29. To a Child
  30. Household Art
  31. The Distressed Poet
  32. Jocosa Lyra
  33. My Books
  34. The Book-Plate's Petition
  35. Palomydes
  36. André Le Chapelain
  37. The Water of Gold
  38. A Fancy from Fontenelle
  39. Don Quixote
  40. A Broken Sword
  41. The Poet's Seat
  42. The Lost Elixir
  43. A Dialogue
  44. A Familiar Epistle
  45. Henry Fielding
  46. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  47. Charles George Gordon
  48. Victor Hugo
  49. Alfred, Lord Tennyson
  50. The Poet and the Critics
  51. The Toyman
  52. The Successful Author
  53. The Dilettant
  54. The Two Painters
  55. The Claims of the Muse
  56. The 'Squire at Vauxhall
  57. The Climacteric
  58. The Virgin with the Bells
  59. A Tale of Polypheme
  60. A Story from a Dictionary
  61. The Water-Cure
  62. The Noble Patron
  63. Incognita
  64. Dora Versus Rose
  65. Ad Rosam
  66. Outward Bound
  67. The Last Despatch
  68. "Premiers Amours"
  69. The Screen in the Lumber Room
  70. Daisy's Valentines
  71. In Town
  72. A Sonnet in Dialogue
  73. Growing Gray
  74. The Maltworm's Madrigal
  75. An April Pastoral
  76. A New Song of the Spring Gardens
  77. A Love-Song
  78. Of His Mistress
  79. The Nameless Charm
  80. To Phidyle
  81. To His Book
  82. For a Copy of Herrick
  83. With a Volume of Verse
  84. For the Avery "Knickerbocker"
  85. To a Pastoral Poet
  86. "Sat Est Scripsisse"
  87. Prologue to Abbey's Edition of "She Stoops to Conquer"
  88. L'Envoi
  89. Prologue to Abbey's "Quiet Life"
  90. The Paradox of Time
  91. To a Greek Girl
  92. A Ballad to Queen Elizabeth
  93. Epilogue
  94. In After Days
  95. On a Fan that Belonged to the Marquise de Pompadour
  96. A Dead Letter
  97. With Pipe and Flute
  98. O Navis
  99. O Fons Bandusiæ
  100. For a Copy of Theocritus
  101. A Gage d'Amour
  102. The Cradle
  103. Ars Victrix
  104. Urceus Exit
  105. A Ballad of Heroes
  106. 'Fame is a Food that Dead Men Eat'
  107. A Song of Angiola in Heaven
  108. The Dance of Death
  109. A Gentleman of the Old School
  110. The Ballad of Imitation
  111. The Wanderer
  112. A Kiss
  113. 'When I Saw You Last, Rose'
  114. A Song of the Four Seasons
  115. The Ballad of Prose and Rhyme
  116. 'You Bid Me Try'
  117. A Dialogue from Plato

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