May Probyn

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]

St Mary Magdalen, Mortlake

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]