Happy Birthday William H Davies

“What is this life if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare?”

Possibly the most famous couplet of the past hundred years was written by William Henry Davies

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES

Born on the 3rd July 1871 William H Davies led an eventful life. Spending much of his life as a tramp in both Britain and America he nevertheless found time to write and publish over twenty books. Probably his most famous book being “An Autobiography of a Supertramp” and his best known poem being “Leisure” [ http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/6303 ]

Davies was born in Wales and was raised by his grandparents his father dying when Davies was 2 and his mother abandoning himself and his brothers when she subsequently married again. His father had been a sea captain and it is possibly from him that Davies inherited his wanderlust. He describes his philosophy of that time in his poem “No Master” [ http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/16464 ]
When he could not persuade his grandparents to provide funds for a trip to America he took various casual jobs and paid for his own passage. He actually made the voyage several times as a crewman on a cattle boat. Whilst on a trip to the Klondike Goldfields he fell of a freight train and lost a leg. After being fitted with a wooden leg he continued his ramblings in America and in England. He spent time as a tramp in order to save money from his inheritance so that he might publish his first book of poetry in 1905 (The Soul’s Destroyer). This was not a great success at the time selling only 60 copies from the first printing of 200! His poems “The Heap of Rags” and The Sleepers [ http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/8876 http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/8881 ] tell something of his life at that point.
Many of Davies’ best poems are about nature and the countryside. There is his classic “The Mind’s Liberty” [ http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/16467 ] describing remembered sights. Winter’s Beauty” [ http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/32576 ], “When the Cuckoo Sings” [ http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/32595 ] and “Raptures” [ http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/70589 ] all tell of his love for the outdoor scene.
Probably his best poem decrying city life and extolling rural living is “Return to Nature” [
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/32596 ]

In his early life an unlikely candidate for the accolade of Poet but a man whose published work fully justify the title. Let’s wish a belated “Happy Birthday” to a Super Tramp