Classic Love Poems
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Juliana Mary Louisa Probyn, known as May Probyn (1856-1909)1, was an English poet and songwriter. So little is known about her personal life, a review of her book Poems (1881) in The Westminster Review (October 1881) begins: “Who May Probyn may be we know not.” In 1895, Probyn’s poem Barcarolle was selected for publication in Favorite Poems from the Best Authors. Among her other works is the famous tale Who Killed Cock Robin (1880) and a collection of verse entitled A Ballad of the Road and Other Poems (1883).
Love in Mayfair
I must tell you, my dear,
I’m in love with him vastly!
Twenty thousand a year,
I must tell you, my dear!
He will soon be a peer
And such diamonds!
—and, lastly,
I must tell you, my dear,
I’m in love with him, vastly!
Yesterday
‘Twas yesterday he went away
And all my life is still to live!
One was my lover, one my friend
What other answer could I give?
He told me “women should obey
Love was no love that would not bend”
He left me nothing more to say
‘Twas yesterday—but yesterday.
We walked beside the uncut hay
He drew me close—he held my hand;
I whispered it was his mistake;
He said I did not understand.
He laid commands—I gave him nay
And then I thought my heart would break;
Not all my tears could make him stay
‘Twas yesterday—but yesterday!
Can love be love that leads astray?
Forswear the friend of all my life?
Or else, he said—and bade me choose—
He would not have me for a wife.
He did not urge, nor plead, nor pray
He left me nothing more to lose,
No gleam of hope, no faintest ray.
My skies have lost their sunny blues,
And changed to chill and winter grey;
And yet but now they shone so gay,
But now we walked beside the may,
And heard the thrushes’ roundelay—
Dear God! ’twas only yesterday.
1A short bio on May Probyn can be found in the footnotes of The Collected Letters of W. B. Yeats: 1865-1895, beginning on Page 67. More information and mention of her name can be found in the body Yeats’ letters.
on “Probyn, May”
