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.
She was born in Avranches, France."Julian John Webb Probyn", Ancestry.com Her parents were the writer John Webb Probyn and Mary Christiana née Spicer;Probyn Family at elgar.org and the novelist and short-story writer Sophie Dora Spicer Maude was a cousin."Maude, Mrs William – Sophie Dora", The Catholic Who's Who & Year Book 1908, edited by Sir F. C. Burnard (London: Burns & Oates), p. 272. She was the first love of William Satchell,Stafford, Jane and Williams, Mark, Maoriland: New Zealand Literature 1872–1914 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006), p. 232. who published the first two of her three books of poetry. She published a novel in 1878, and became a Catholic convert in 1883.The Selected Letters of Katharine Tynan: Poet and Novelist, edited by Damian Atkinson (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), p. 84, n. 133. Among her friends were W. B. Yeats, Thomas Westwood, the fishing writer, Vernon Lee,Canani, Marco (2014). Vernon Lee and the Italian Renaissance: Plasticity, Gender, Genre, p. 54. and Katharine Tynan, with whom in 1895 she published Christmas Verses, consisting of four poems by Probyn and two by Tynan.
Probyn is buried in St Mary Magdalen Roman Catholic Church, Mortlake.Meller, Hugh: Parsons, Brian (2011). London Cemeteries: An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer (Fifth ed.). Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press. p. 261. .Probyn, May 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"Vilanelle", In Memoriam: Book of Ten Songs, Op. 102 (1899), no. 10 and "Come What Will, You Are Mine To-day" by Henry Kimball Hadley in 1909."Come What Will, You Are Mine To-day", Five Songs, Op. 44,(1909), no. 5.
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.Publicappeal.org at www.publicappeal.org
References
Sources "May Probyn", in Thesing, William B. Victorian Women Poets, 1998. Volume 199 of the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
External links
Poems Pansies