Francis Brett Young

Born in June in 1884 in Worcestershire at a place called Hales Owen
Renowned almost two centuries earlier as the birth place of the great poet William Shenstone,
A novelist and a poet of rare talent by the literary critics his praises have been sung
When you talk of literary giants of the twentieth century you never can omit Francis Brett Young.

He married a famed singer Jessica Hankinson and far from their home land they travelled far and wide
And their journey took them to the warmer climate to Capetown in South Africa where he died,
In March in nineteen fifty four on his sixty ninth year the reaper claimed him but his works still live on
And perhaps it's a tribute to the worth of any writer that they still have readers though they are long dead and gone.

His classic poem 'The Quails' will live forever such a thing of great beauty and such things never die
In a thousand years from now that poem will be read I still fancy I can hear the blind quail cry
As it called in the night to it's migrating kin birds used as lure by those who had gouged out it's eyes
Some men are cruel and cruelty to them normal and though they do grow old they never do grow wise.

At Hales Owen he began his great life's journey a journey that would lead him to renown
And at Capetown in South Africa his life ended so many miles distant from his home-town
He had fought in world war 1 and known fame as a writer and from his home land he lived far away
And he was not your average sort of fellow and in his works his legend lives today.