[WILLIAM F. MARVIN]
William F. Marvin, "the latter-day drunken poet of Danville," was born at Leicestershire, England, in 1804. He emigrated to America when a young man, and made his home in the little town of Danville, Kentucky. Marvin was a shoemaker by trade, but verse-making and bacchanalian nights were his heart's delight and perfect pleasures. He was a well-known character in Danville and the surrounding country, and many are the old wives' tales they tell on the old poet to this day. On one occasion, while in his cups, of course, he attempted suicide, using his shoe knife on his throat, but he was finally persuaded that a shoe knife could be put to far better purposes. Marvin served in the Mexican War, and on his return home, he published his first and only book of verse, The Battle of Monterey and Other Poems (Danville, Kentucky, 1851). The title-poem, The Battle of Monterey, is a rather lengthy metrical romance of some forty or more pages; but the "other poems," called also "miscellaneous poems," extend the book to its 219 pages. A few of these are worthy of preservation, especially the shorter lyrics. Marvin's book is now extremely rare. The writer has located not more than six copies, though a large edition was printed by the poet's publisher, Captain A. S. McGrorty, who is still in the land of the living. During the closing years of his life Marvin contributed occasional poems to the old Kentucky Advocate, the Danville newspaper, his last poem having appeared in that paper, called The Beauty, Breadth, and Depth of Love. William F. Marvin died at Danville, Kentucky, July 12, 1879, and was buried in the cemetery of the town. To-day his grave may be identified, but it is unmarked by a monument. His verse certainly shows decided improvement over the rhymes of Thomas Johnson, but both of them were imperfect forerunners of that celebrated poet and distinguished soldier, who was born at Danville about the time Marvin reached there and set up his shop on Main street—Theodore O'Hara, the highest poetic note in the literature of old Kentucky.
Bibliography. The Kentucky Advocate (Danville, July 14, 1879); letters from G. W. Doneghy, the Danville poet of to-day, author of The Old Hanging Fork, and Other Poems (Franklin, Ohio, 1897), to the writer.
EPIGRAM
[From The Battle of Monterey and Other Poems (Danville, Kentucky, 1851)]
A bee, while hovering round a lip,
Where wit and beauty hung,
Mistook its bloom, and flew to sip,
But ah, the bee got stung.
THE FIRST ROSES OF SPRING
[From the same]