Kendall, Henry

Kendall, Henry 

Born Apr. 18, 1839, in Kirmington; died Aug. 1, 1882, in Sydney. Australian poet. Son of a small farmer, he was a shipboy, errand boy, and minor official.

Kendall published his first collection, Poems and Songs, in 1862. Narrative poems and ballads based on Australian life (“A Death in the Bush,” 1868) and classical and biblical themes, lyrical poems, and sharp satires on Australian political figures (“The Song of Ninian Melville,” “The Gagging Bill”) went into the collections Leaves From Australian Forests (1869) and Songs From the Mountains (1880). In the poem “The Last of His Tribe” Kendall sympathetically described the tragic fate of the aborigines (1864). His poetry was strongly influenced by traditions of romanticism.

WORKS

Selected Poems. Sydney, 1957.
The Poetical Works. Adelaide, 1966.
In Russian translation: [“Stikhi.”] In the collection Poeziia Avstralii. Moscow, 1967.

REFERENCES

Kendall, F. C. Henry Kendall: His Later Years. Sydney, 1938.
Reed, T. Henry Kendall. Adelaide, 1960.