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1844-1869
George Heath, known as the Moorland Poet, was born in the village of Gratton in the Staffordshire Moorlands in 1844. Educated at the village school, he worked on his father's farm, and was then apprenticed to a builder. Around this time he decided to become a poet (or to quote his journal: "fancy indulged in wildly beautiful dreams to the curl of the shavings and rasp of the saw") and he wrote his first verses in 1863. The following year, while renovating the church in the neighbouring village of Horton, he caught a chill, which later developed into consumption.
Now unable to work he devoted himself to his writing. Fully aware of his lack of formal education, he spent much of his time in study. His curriculum was not confined to poetry and the English language however, he also studied history, took lessons in Latin and Greek from a local vicar, and his Saturdays were devoted to arithmetic. His first slim volume, Simple poems, was published locally in 1865. His second book, Heart strains, appeared the following year and there were public readings of his work in Leek and Stafford. He embarked on several long works, including a history of his own family called The country woman's tale, and an epic entitled The doom of Babylon, but they remained unfinished.
George Heath died in 1869, at the age of 25. His endeavours had been encouraged in life by a close circle of friends and this support continued after the poet's death. An edition of his selected poems was published in 1870 and a memorial stone was erected over his grave in Horton churchyard. The epitaph on the stone was taken from one of his own poems:
"His life is a fragment--a broken clue--
His harp had a musical string or two,
The tension was great, and they sprang and flew,
And a few brief strains--a scattered few--
Are all that remain to mortal view
Of the marvellous song the young man knew."
It is impossible to assess the merits of George Heath's poetry without referring to the circumstances in which it was written. Given his background it is amazing that he wrote at all. Given the fact that he wrote the majority of his work when he was effectively dying, invests all his poems with a poignancy which defeats any attempt at objective criticism. Added to this is the effect of the passage of time. He achieved little more than local fame (as 'the Moorland poet' and 'the invalid Poet') during his own life, and after a second printing of the Memorial Edition in 1880 his poetry was forgotten. What remained was the perfect Romantic image. The young man, inspired to write poetry by forces unknown, struck down in youth, lying in a village churchyard, his grave overgrown with weeds. George Heath foresaw his own fate and a constant theme in his work, which runs alongside his understandable obsession with death, is the frustration of unfulfilled ambition.
© Patrick Regan
Simple poems
Heart strains
The country woman’s tale
The doom of Babylon
For more information on George Heath see Patrick Regan's website devoted to the poet which contains the full text of the 1870 Memorial Edition, plus illustrations, photographs and other related material.
Page created 27 March 2002 and last updated
5 July 2008
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