Walter Headlam

Walter George Headlam (15 February 1866 – 20 June 1908) was an English classical scholar and poet. A fellow of Kings College, Cambridge, Headlam is perhaps best remembered for his work on the Mimes of Herodas. He is described in the Alumni Cantabrigienses as "one of the leading Greek scholars of his time."

Walter Headlam aged 18

His signature

Quotes

• Sometimes the original may have to wait until there is a vessel to transfer it into.
  • From the Preface to A Book of Greek Verse (Cambridge University Press, 1907), p. ix

• Love that fills the firmament with glory!—
    All the world knew this, but now I know it;
  Last have proved the eternal story
    And in song will shew it,
  All to gain, if you shall deign
    Me to be your poet.
  O divinest Heavenly Aphrodite,
    Here on earth incarnate I behold you,
  Lovelier, more serene and mighty
    Than my lips have told you,
  Far beyond my dreamings fond
    In my arms to fold you.
  You it was knew where the sweet flowers haunted;
    I could praise them found, but you could find them;
  I with studious art unvaunted
    Have in garlands twined them,
  And as due bring here to you
    On your brows to bind them.
  Take the worship, and with grace in guerdon
    Still for me new flower-abodes discover,
  That my song may keep its burden,
    There is nought above her;
  I, denied her breast, abide
    Her devoutest lover.
  • "To—" (March 1895) in Cecil Headlam, ed., Walter Headlam, His Letters and Poems, with a Memoir (London: Duckworth & Co., 1910), Part II, p. 3

• June with her glancing grasses,
    June with a smiling sky,
  June, brown as the country lasses
    Or wings of the dragon-fly!
  The mown hay lies like sedges
    Or weed of the seashore strewn;
  Abrim with corn to the hedges
    The fields are filled in June.
  • "June" in Cecil Headlam, ed. (1910), Part II, p. 19; cp. "The Nut-Brown Maid"