Bidspirit auction | AUSTIN ALFRED: (1835-1913)

AUSTIN ALFRED: (1835-1913) - AUSTIN ALFRED: (1835-1913) English poet who served as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom 1896-1913. Atograph poem signed, Alfred Austin , one page, folio, n.p., n.d. Austin has penned a fair copy of his patriotic, jingoistic wartime poem Spartan Mothers , comprising four stanzas and commencing ´ ”One more embrace! Then o´er the main/ And nobly play the soldier´s part”/ Thus speaks, amid the martial strain/ The Spartan Mother´s aching heart/ She hides her woe/ She bids him go/ And tread the path his fathers trod/ ”Who fights for England, fights for God” ´ . Neatly laid down and with some very light, minor age wear, about VG Published around the turn of the 20th century, and originally appearing in the Daily Graphic, Austin´s poem Spartan Mothers uses the historical imagery of ancient Spartan mothers sending their sons to war as a metaphor for contemporary British mothers sending their sons to fight in the Boer War in South Africa.