George Barlow

George Barlow Poems

George Barlow Biography

George Barlow (19 June 1847, London – 1913 or 1914) was an English poet, who sometimes wrote under the pseudonym James Hinton. Barlow was the son of George Barnes Barlow, Master of the Crown Office, and was educated at Harrow School and Exeter College, Oxford. He moved to London in 1871, and continued to live there after his marriage a year later. A prolific poet, his collected Poetical Works amounted to over 3,000 pages of verse. Barlow was dubbed the 'Bard of the sixteen sonnets a day' by his acquaintance Charles Marston, and 'the Poet of spiritualism' by Edward Bennett; his sonnet sequences explored spiritualism and erotic love. In addition to his published poetry oeuvre, Barlow wrote at least two non-fiction books, History of the Dreyfus case (1898) and The genius of Dickens. He was a regular contributor to the Contemporary Review.)

The Best Poem Of George Barlow

The Anglo-Japanese Treaty Sonnet

When Hate’s black standard is at length unfurled
And stored-up rancours smite thee,—when from France
Springs Waterloo’s for ever poisoned lance
And Germany, like a huge snake uncurled,
Gleams fierce and fork-tongued,—when from Russia hurled
Dark armies down the Asian vales advance
Pitiless, immense, barbaric,—when no glance
Meets thine of friendship, not through all the world,
Though bright through all the world flamed once thy flag,—
Then, while the mad guns rave from crag to crag
And thou art wrestling with the hosts of man,
Thine armour rent even as a woman’s scarf,
Who shall stand by thee? This thy loving dwarf,
Thy staunch ally, thy saviour, swart Japan.

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