Poetry Codex

Victorian

Alexander Smith

1829–1867

Alexander Smith (1829–1867) was a Scottish poet and essayist, born in Kilmarnock and trained as a designer of lace patterns in Glasgow. His long poem A Life-Drama (1853) made his name and linked him with the so-called Spasmodic school; in 1854 he became secretary to the University of Edinburgh, and his essays Dreamthorp appeared in 1863. He died in Edinburgh at thirty-seven.

The poems here are taken from the third edition of Poems (London: David Bogue, 1854). A Life-Drama is given as a work in thirteen scenes, with the scene settings and stage directions left out and the speakers’ names kept; the shorter poems and the untitled sonnets follow, each sonnet named by its first line.

Major Works (1)

  1. A Life-Drama — Dramatic poem, 1853

Poems (14)

  1. An Evening at Home
  2. Lady Barbara
  3. To ----
  4. I cannot deem why men toil so for Fame.
  5. There have been vast displays of critic wit
  6. Joy like a stream flows through the Christmas-streets
  7. Beauty still walketh on the earth and air
  8. Last night my cheek was wetted with warm tears
  9. I wrote a Name upon the river sands
  10. Like clouds or streams we wandered on at will
  11. Sheath'd is the river as it glideth by
  12. Glasgow
  13. City Poems
  14. Barbara

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