“I meant to do my work today,
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me…
So what could I do but laugh and go?”
Richard Le Gallienne (20 January 1866 – 15 September 1947) was an English author and poet. The British-American actress Eva Le Gallienne (1899–1991) was his daughter by his second marriage to a Danish journalist, Julie Nørregaard (1863–1942). Richard Thomas Gallienne was born in West Derby, Liverpool, England, the eldest son of Jean (John) Gallienne (1843-1929], manager of the Birkenhead Brewery, and his wife Jane (1839-1910), née Smith. He attended the (then) all boys public school, Liverpool College. After leaving school he changed his name to Le Gallienne and started working in an accountant’s office in London. In 1883 his father took him to a lecture by Oscar Wilde in Birkenhead. He soon abandoned his job and became a professional writer, with ambitions of being a poet. His book, “My Ladies’ Sonnets”, appeared in 1887, and in 1889 he became, for a brief time, literary secretary to Wilson Barrett, who was an English manager, actor and playwright. You can find more information if you click on his name below the poem.
