Thanks for all the good responses. Just a note here to recommend a book. I recently acquired "British Women Poets
of the Nineteenth Century" (ed. Margaret Higonnet, from
Penguin Group). It contains all the poets you would expect,
a few who aren't worth the space they take up, and several
real finds. I was delighted to find several pages devoted
to Michael Field (who was really two women), but the
surprise gem of the book for me was a dramatic monologue
called "Xantippe" by Amy Levy, who died young (by suicide)
in 1889. I'm going to see if the used bookstores can help
me find more work by Levy.
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Just so as not to go off without leaving a poem, here's
one by F.W. Bourdillon, who died in 1921 having written
several volumes of verse, but only one memorable poem:
THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES
The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world died
With the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
when love is done.
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