May Probyn Explained

Juliana Mary Louisa Probyn, known as May Probyn (12 April 1856  - 29 March 1909) was an English poet, one of a group of lively and somewhat political British fin de siècle poets.^[1]

She was born in Avranches, France.^[2] Her parents were the writer John Webb Probyn and Mary Christiana née Spicer;^[3] and the novelist and short-story writer Sophie Dora Spicer Maude was a cousin.^[4] She was the first love of William Satchell,^[5] who published the first two of her three books of poetry. She published a novel in 1878,^[6] and became a Catholic convert in 1883.^[7] Among her friends were W. B. Yeats,^[5] Thomas Westwood, the fishing writer,^[8] Vernon Lee,^[9] and Katharine Tynan, with whom in 1895 she published Christmas Verses, consisting of four poems by Probyn and two by Tynan.^[7] Probyn is buried in St Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church, Mortlake.^{[10] [11]} Her grave is inscribed 'That, being dead to this world, she may live to thee'.

A number of Probyn's poems have been set to music, including "Vilanelle" by Jacques Blumenthal in 1899^[12] and "Come What Will, You Are Mine To-day" by Henry Kimball Hadley in 1909.^[13]

Works

• Once! Twice! Thrice! and Away! A Novel. (1878)
• Robert Tresilian. A Story (1880)
• Who Killed Cock Robin? (1880)
• Poems (1881)
• A Ballad of the Road, and Other Poems (1883)
• Pansies: A Book of Poems (1895)

Her poem "Is it nothing to you" is in the Oxford Book of English Verse.^[14]

Sources

• "May Probyn", in Thesing, William B. Victorian Women Poets, 1998. Volume 199 of the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

External links

• • • Poems
• Pansies

Notes and References

1. Book: Marshall, Gail . The Cambridge Companion to the Fin de Siècle. 2 August 2007. Cambridge University Press. 978-0-521-85063-6. 234–5.
2. "Julian John Webb Probyn", Ancestry.com
3. http://www.elgar.org/6cctree3.pdf Probyn Family
4. "Maude, Mrs William – Sophie Dora", The Catholic Who's Who & Year Book 1908, edited by Sir F. C. Burnard (London: Burns & Oates), p. 272.
5. Stafford, Jane and Williams, Mark, Maoriland: New Zealand Literature 1872–1914 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006), p. 232.
6. Book: Kreuger, Christine L.. Encyclopedia of British Writers, 19th and 20th Centuries. 1 January 2009. Infobase Publishing. 978-1-4381-0870-4. 277–.
7. The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist, edited by Damian Atkinson (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), p. 84, n. 133.
8. Book: Moine, Dr Fabienne. Women Poets in the Victorian Era: Cultural Practices and Nature Poetry. 28 November 2015. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. 978-1-4724-6477-4. 1.
9. Canani, Marco (2014). Vernon Lee and the Italian Renaissance: Plasticity, Gender, Genre, p. 54.
10. Meller, Hugh: Parsons, Brian (2011). London Cemeteries: An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer (Fifth ed.). Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press. p. 261. .
11. http://androom.home.xs4all.nl/biography/p019680.htm Probyn, May
12. "Vilanelle", In Memoriam: Book of Ten Songs, Op. 102 (1899), no. 10
13. https://songofamerica.net/song/come-what-will-you-are-mine-to-day-op-44-no-5/ "Come What Will, You Are Mine To-day"
14. http://www.publicappeal.org/library/dps/obev/obev281.html Publicappeal.org