Theo Marzials
Anglo-French poet and eccentric (1850-1920)
Théophile-Jules-Henri "Theo" Marzials (20 December 1850 – 2 February 1920) was a British composer, singer and poet. Marzials was described in 1894 as a "poet and eccentric" by parodist Max Beerbohm, and, after writing and performing several popular songs, vanished into obscurity. His poetry is seen as an example of 19th-century aestheticism.
Quotes edit
- And also there’s a little star
So white a virgin’s it must be:—
Perhaps the lamp my love in heaven
Hangs out to light the way for me.- Song (1883).
- “Ahoy! and Oho, and it’s who’s for the ferry?”
(The brier’s in bud and the sun going down:)
“And I’ll row ye so quick and I’ll row ye so steady,
And ’t is but a penny to Twickenham Town.- Twickenham Ferry (1883).
- Death!
Plop.
The barges down in the river flop.
Flop, plop,
Above, beneath.
From the slimy branches the grey drips drop...
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop...
And my head shrieks--"Stop"
And my heart shrieks--"Die"...- A Tragedy, reported by several critics to be the worst poem published in the English language.[1].
About Theo Marzials edit
- I have read a rondeau or rondel by Marzials in the Athenaeum beginning and ending "When I see you": it was very graceful and shewing an art and finish rare in English verse. This makes me the more astonished about Flop flop.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins, letter to Robert Bridges (1878-05-13).
- [T]he handsomest, the wittiest, the most brilliant and the most charming of poets. On the last occasion when I happened to catch sight of him, looking into a case of stuffed birds at South Kensington Museum, he had eaten five large chocolate creams in the space of two minutes. He had a career tragic in the extreme and, as I believe, is now dead.
- Ford Madox Ford (1911).[2] In fact, Marzails was then still living, and did not die until 1920.
