I lived from 1823-1890.
I was from the United States, and am in the Americas category.
George Henry Boker was born on October 6, 1823. He was the son of Charles Boker, a wealthy banker. He graduated from the college of New Jersey in 1842 which is now know as Princeton University. While there, he helped found and was the first editor of the literary magazine Nassau Monthly. Boker married Julia Riggs in 1844. He abandoned plans to be a lawyer and took up writing. He was financially well to do and devoted himself to literature, boxing and dancing. He published his first book of poetry in 1848 and also began writing plays. His skill at writing historical dramas drew respectable audiences. His plays and poems were eventually printed in a two volume set of books, but he never received the recognition that he felt he deserved.
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During the Civil War, Boker served his country by writing patriotic poems. He founded the Union Club(which later became the Union League) in 1862. The main goals of the organization was to raise funds for the war and encourage men to enlist in the army. The war changed Boker from a Democrat to a staunch Republican. He was closely involved with the rehabilitation of the Republican party in Philadelphia. In 1871, in recognition of his national service, President Ulysses S. Grant sent Boker to Constantinople, as U.S. Minister to Turkey. He was a natural-born diplomat. He helped reestablish diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire and worked eagerly to negotiate two important treaties with Turkey, but his enthusiasm was undermined by his ignorance of the tongue, and distrust of interpreters. He was glad to leave Turkey when the U.S. government transferred him to Russia as the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia. Despite his success in St. Petersburg and his personal friendship with the czar, when the administration in Washington changed in 1878, he was recalled. He withdrew from diplomatic life upon his return United States.
Boker returned to Philadelphia and became president of the Union League. At this point in his life he felt that both his literary and diplomatic careers had been failures. In 1882, there was a revival of interest in his work and several of his books were reprinted. For several years he served as the director of the Mechanic’s National Bank of Philadelphia. He was appointed to a seat on the Fairmont Park Commission where he actively pursued the beautification of Philadelphia’s city parks. He died on January 2, 1890 from heart disease.
Boker also wrote hundreds of sonnets. A collection of these was discovered after his death, and published in 1927.
Popular poetry
When we two parted, on a summer day,
With lingering hands, with sobs, with swimming eyes,
15 lines
Is love a pleasure or a pain in mask,
The more to lure us on to final woe,
15 lines
There is no greater sorrow, Dante said,
Than to remember happy days in grief.
13 lines
Stand fast amidst the darkness! Ah! my dear,
'Tis easy loving where the sunshine falls,
15 lines
If dreaming of thee be a waste of time,
My endless sin I can but frankly own;
13 lines
Time masks, but cannot bound my love for thee;
All the year's changes, the bud, bloom, and fall
13 lines
Gone, gone! The rayless window sheds no light
Upon my upturned eyes; the graceful girl
15 lines
Love stirs the pulses of my deeper thought,
Muses on things that were and things to be,
15 lines
I, like thy shadow, am a part of thee.
In vain thou fliest: the level desert plain--
13 lines
I have thy love, and were I drunk with joy
That were enough. I'd revel out my day,
16 lines
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