Philip Bourke Marston

Philip Bourke Marston (1850–1887) was an English poet, the son of the dramatist and critic Westland Marston. He lost his sight in childhood and spent his short life as a blind poet in London, where his circle included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Arthur O’Shaughnessy and Oliver Madox Brown. Much of his verse is shaped by bereavement: the early death of his betrothed, then of friends and of his sister Cicely.

The poems given here are taken from The Collected Poems of Philip Bourke Marston (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1892), which gathers his three lifetime books, Song-Tide, All in All and Wind-Voices, with the posthumous A Last Harvest and Aftermath. The biographical sketch by Louise Chandler Moulton and her dedicatory sonnet are not reproduced. The text comes from an optical scan of the printed book and has been corrected for obvious scanning errors; stanza breaks are reconstructed and may not always match the page.