Poetry Codex

Victorian

Fiona Macleod (William Sharp)

1855–1905

William Sharp (1855–1905), born in Paisley, was a Scottish writer who published under his own name and, from 1893, under the woman's name 'Fiona Macleod', whose Celtic romances and lyrics (Pharais, 1894; The Mountain Lovers, 1895; The Sin-Eater, 1895) made her a leading voice of the Celtic Twilight. Who was behind the pen name was kept secret until his death in Sicily in 1905.

Sharp also wrote the Introduction to Lyra Celtica, which his wife, Elizabeth A. Sharp, edited. The seven poems here are those the anthology prints as Fiona Macleod's.

Poems (22)

  1. The Prayer of Women
  2. The Rune of Age
  3. A Milking Song
  4. Lullaby
  5. The Songs of Ethlenn Stuart
  6. The Closing Doors
  7. The Sorrow of Delight
  8. On a Nightingale in April
  9. The Valley of Silence
  10. Desire
  11. The White Peace
  12. The Rose of Flame
  13. The Mystic's Prayer
  14. Triad
  15. The Vision
  16. The Last Aboriginal
  17. The Coves of Crail
  18. The Isle of Lost Dreams
  19. The Death-Child
  20. Susurro
  21. Red Poppies in the Sabine Valleys near Rome
  22. Song

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