Menella Bute Smedley (1819-1877) was a novelist and poet.
A relative of Lewis Carroll, Smedley wrote some minor novels and books of poems, including the anonymous, The Story of Queen Isabel, and Other Verses, 1863.
She translated the old German ballad "The Shepherd of the Giant Mountains" into English in 1846. Roger Lancelyn Green, in the Times Literary Supplement (1 March 1957), and later in The Lewis Carroll Handbook (1962), suggests that Carroll’s Jabberwockey may have been inspired by this work.
She died at her home at Regent's Park, London on 25 May 1877 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery.
The wind bloweth wildly; she stands on the shore;
She shudders to hear it, and will evermore.
The rush of the waves, as they rose and they fell,
...
Down by the pier, when the sweet morn is blowing,
Slips from her moorings the fisher's light bark,
Sends up her ringing sails while she is going,
...
A wind came out of the Moon's clear heart,
Straight and soft in my face it blew;
It was not cold, but it made me start,
...
Comfort me, O my God!
Mine only hope Thou art!
The strokes of Thine afflicting rod
Fall heavy on my heart.
...
Oh, listen, ye dames and ye lordlings all;
For never before or since
Was there known so stately a festival
...