Frances Cornford

Frances Crofts Cornford (née Darwin; 1886-1960) was an English poet.

She was the daughter of the botanist Francis Darwin and Ellen Crofts, born into the Darwin — Wedgwood family. She was a granddaughter of the British naturalist Charles Darwin. Her elder half-brother was the golf writer Bernard Darwin.

Frances Crofts married Francis Cornford; they had 5 children: Christopher, Clare, Helena, Hugh, and the poet John. Matthew Chapman is their grandson through Clare.

She wrote poems including "The Guitarist Tunes Up":

"With what attentive courtesy he bent
"Over his instrument;"
"Not as a lordly conqueror who could"
"Command both wire and wood,"
"But as a man with a loved woman might",
"Inquiring with delight"
"What slight essential things she had to say"
"Before they started, he and she, to play".
"

One of Frances Cornford's poems was a favourite of the late Philip Larkin and his lover Maeve Brennan. "All Souls' Night" uses the superstition that a dead lover will appear to a still faithful partner on that November date. Maev, many years after Larkin's death, would re-read the poem on All Souls:

"My love came back to me "
"Under the November tree "
"Shelterless and dim. "
"He put his hand upon my shoulder,"
"He did not think me strange or older,"
"Nor I him. "
"

Although the myth enhances the poem - it can be read as the meeting of older, former lovers.

External links

* [http://www.poetry-archive.com/c/cornford_frances_bibliography.html Bibliography]
* [http://www.literarynorfolk.co.uk/Poems/the_coast_norfolk.htm "The Coast: Norfolk" by Frances Cornford]
*NRA|P6573