Poets

Francis William Bourdillon was a British poet and translator.

Life

Born in Runcorn, Cheshire, grew up at Woolbeding Rectory, near Midhurst, and deeply loved the area, and later built for himself and his family the house nearby, called 'Buddington'.

He was educated at Worcester College, Oxford. He acted as tutor to the sons of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. Later he did tutoring for the University of Eastbourne, and lived in Eastbourne,and near Midhurst, Sussex.

He is known mostly for his poetry, and in particular the single short poem The Night Has a Thousand Eyes. He in fact had many collections published, from Among The Flowers, And Other Poems (1878) to Gerard and Isabel: a Romance in Form of Cantefable (1921), and including a Chryseis, and Preludes and Romances (1908).

In 1896 he published Nephelé, a romantic novel. He translated Aucassin et Nicolette as Aucassin and Nicolet (1887), wrote a scholarly work The Early Editions of the Roman de la Rose (1906), Russia Reborn (1917), and published a number of essays with the Religious Tract Society.