It has always surprised me how many good poets took their own lives. Perhaps it goes with the job!
Enter Charlotte Mary Mew (born 1869), a successful Victorian poet and a member of the 'Bloomsbury Set', which included the writers Virginia Woolf,, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strachey.
She was born in London on November 15, 1869 and was plagued to suicide by her private life. The dutiful daughter of a harsh mother, Charlotte had two insane siblings, no money and a terrible secret: she was a lesbian.
Haunted by unrequited passion and tormented by fears of madness she, nevertheless, produced poems of unique beauty and passion.
In March 1924 she was admitted to a nursing home where she committed suicide by drinking Lysol disinfectant.
Although her life was lived for the most part in poverty and despair she was still recognized by Vita Sackville West as a poetess of distinction.
Virginia Woolf called her the greatest living poetess, and Marianne Moore, a quarter of a century after her death, considered her work 'above praise.'
Thomas Hardy accorded her extraordinary praise, and others believed she approached poetic genius.
ABSENCE
Sometimes I know the way
You walk, up over the bay;
It is a wind from the far sea
That blows the fragrance of your hair to me.
Or in this garden when the breeze
Touches my trees
To stir their dreaming shadows on the grass
I see you pass.
In shelterd beds, the heart of every rose
Serenly sleeps tonight. As shut as those
Your guarded heart; as safe as they from the beat, beat
Of hooves that tread dropped roses in the street.
Turn never again
On these eyes blind with a wild rain
Your eyes; they were stars to me.
There are things stars may not see.
But call, call, and though Christ stands
Still with scarred hands
Over my mouth, I must answer. So
I will come--He shall let me go!
The above is taken from the following website, where you can read more of her poems.
