Victorian
Mary Howitt
Mary Howitt (née Botham, 1799–1888) was an English poet and writer, born at Coleford in Gloucestershire and brought up in a Quaker family in Staffordshire. Married to the writer William Howitt, she was widely read for her ballads and for verse written for children, above all “The Spider and the Fly”, and she later translated Hans Christian Andersen and Fredrika Bremer into English.
The poems here are taken from the Philadelphia edition of 1844, which gathers her hymns and fireside verses, poems of birds, flowers and country things, sketches of natural history, tales in verse and miscellaneous pieces. The memoir, the dramatic pieces The Poor Scholar and The Sorrow of Teresa, and a dramatic sketch for a parrot are not included.
Major Works (1)
- Marien’s Pilgrimage — Narrative poem, 1844
Poems (55)
- L’Envoi
- Old Christmas
- The Twelfth Hour
- The Blind Boy and His Sister
- The Poor Child’s Hymn
- The Boy of the Southern Isle
- Easter Hymn I: The Two Marys
- Easter Hymn II: The Angel
- Easter Hymn III: The Lord Jesus
- Easter Hymn IV: The Eleven
- The Two Estates
- Life’s Matins
- A Life’s Sorrow
- The Old Friend and the New
- Mabel on Midsummer Day
- The Stormy Peterel
- The Poor Man’s Garden
- The Oak-Tree
- Morning Thoughts
- Harvest-Field Flowers
- Summer Woods
- The Cuckoo
- The Use of Flowers
- Sunshine
- Summer
- The Child and the Flowers
- Childhood
- L’Envoi
- The Coot
- The Eagle
- The Garden
- The Spider and the Fly
- Andrew Lee
- The Wanderer’s Return
- A Swinging Song
- Ellen More
- A Day of Disasters
- The Young Mourner
- The Soldier’s Story
- The Child’s Lament
- A Day of Hard Work
- The Old Man and the Carrion Crow
- The Little Mariner
- The Sale of the Pet Lamb of the Cottage
- America
- Mourning on Earth
- Rejoicing in Heaven
- An English Grave at Mussooree
- A Forest Scene in the Days of Wickliffe
- The Voyage with the Nautilus
- Cornfields
- The Sea Fowler
- The Fairies of the Caldon-Low
- Buttercups and Daisies
- The Broom Flower