I said yesterday that I would today tell you more about James Henry Leigh Hunt
So I will, but first here is the second most famous poem to flow from his pen:
JENNY KISSED ME
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.
James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was an English poet, critic, and journalist.
He was a friend of the eminent literary men of his time, and his home was the gathering place for such notable writers as Hazlitt , Lamb , Keats , and Shelley .
With his brother John, Hunt established (1808) the Examiner, a liberal weekly to which he contributed political articles. Because of an outspoken article attacking the prince regent, the brothers were imprisoned from 1813 to 1815, but they continued to edit the journal from jail.
In 1822, Hunt joined Shelley and Byron in Italy and launched the Liberal (1822-23), which proved a failure.
During other periods Hunt contributed to the Indicator (1819-21), the Tatler (1830-32), and Leigh Hunt's London Journal (1834-35).
His literary fame rests chiefly on his miscellaneous light essays, his lyrics Abou Ben Adhem and Jenny Kissed Me, and his witty and informative autobiography (1850).
The Story of Rimini (1816), based on the love of Paolo and Francesca, is his only long poem of consequence.
A noted dramatic and literary critic, he was one of the first to praise the genius of Shelley and Keats.
(From the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition)
P.S. Who was Jenny? Answer here tomorrow, unless you tell me first.
