[JOHNSON, Lionel]. FITZPATRICK, R.H.
Lyrics.
The author has transcribed a sonnet “To Lionel Johnson” on the front free endpaper, and dated it 27th Sept 1895. The poem is extremely stylishly written out, with the dash of a professional artist, and is a remarkable statement of “young discipleship”. Fitzpatrick seems to envy Johnson his faith “I am outcast, shelterless and cold … I, with poor Pan must homeless shiver …”
Fitzpatrick, described by the Dictionary of Irish Biography (he doesn’t get an entry, but earns a substantial footnote) as a “merchant tailor”, was associated with the Irish Theosophists in Dublin before moving to Stratford where he edited a Shakespearean journal. He published two volumes of verse and George Russell, surely driven by ties of friendship, reviewed this volume warmly, in 1895‚“and now comes a volume of lyrics which has that transcendental note which is peculiar to our younger writers. It is full of the mystery and commingling of the human and the divine soul.”
A near fine copy with the neat bookplate of Burns Gillam by Rockwell Kent.