Thomas Buchanan Read Biography
Thomas Buchanan Read (March 12, 1822 – May 11, 1872), was an American poet and portrait painter born in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Read wrote a prose romance, The Pilgrims of the Great St. Bernard, and several books of poetry, including The New Pastoral, The House by the Sea, Sylvia, and A Summer Story. Some of the shorter pieces included in these, e.g., "Sheridan's Ride," "Drifting,""The Angler", "The Oath," and "The Closing Scene," have great merit. Read was briefly associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His greatest artistic popularity took place in Florence. Among portraits he painted were Abraham Lincoln, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning and William Henry Harrison. Read died from injuries sustained in a carriage accident, which weakened him and led him to contract pneumonia while on shipboard returning to America.
BUT look! o'er the fall see the angler stand,
Swinging his rod with skilful hand;
The fly at the end of his gossamer line
...
Up from the South, at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
...
From a beautiful lake in the mountain
Two rivulets came down,
With a rustle and flutter like ribbons of blue
...
The road was lone; the grass was dank
With night-dews on the briery hank
Whereon a weary reaper bank.
His garb was old, —his visage tanned;
...
Out of the white, beleaguering lines,
Passing the pickets, beyond the pines,
The herald March comes blustering down,
...
Delivering Poems Around The World
Poems are the property of their respective owners. All information has been reproduced here for educational and informational purposes to benefit site visitors, and is provided at no charge...
12/18/2025 8:31:05 PM # 1.0.0
