Bayly, Nathaniel Thomas Haynes

(1797-1839)

   A versatile songwriter, novelist, dramatist and ballet writer. He seemed destined for either the law or the church, but by his teens it was obvious that literature was his forte. He wrote hundreds of poems and popular songs, which were set to music by Sir Henry Bishop and other eminent composers; Bayly wrote the music for some of them. He also wrote several novels and a number of farces. Among the best known of his songs are "The Mistletoe Bough;" "Oh, No, We Never Mention Her;" "She Wore a Wreath of Roses," and "I'd be a Butterfly." Some of his other poems: "A Novel of High Life," "A Trip to Portsmouth," "Caraboo," "Condolence," "Gaily the Troubadour," "Inconstancy," "Lines Written in the Vale of Llangollen, in Wales," "Long, Long Ago," "Love and Science," "Oh! Love is Born in Youthful Days," "Oh! Where Do Fairies Hide Their Heads?" "Out, John," "To a Tell-Tale," "To Laura," "To Rosa," "We Met."

   Sources: A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature (www.blackmask.com/thatway/books164c/shobio.htm). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib. utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Home Book of Verse. Burton Egbert Stevenson, ed. New York: Henry Holt and Company 1953. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.