Mathilde Blind was born in 1841 in Mannheim, Germany and moved to  London about 1849, having adopted the surname of her stepfather, Karl Blind. She published several books of poetry, including The Prophecy of St. Oran (1881), The Heather on Fire (1886), Songs and Sonnets (1893) and  Birds of Passage (1895).

“Mathilde Blind was one of the leading poets of the later nineteenth century; her burning sense of political and social injustice runs like a unifying thread through her work. Her poetry combines great beauty of sound and image with vigorous narrative, delineation of character, emotional expressiveness, and engagement with intellectual ideas.”        (From Orlando Project)

Blind died in London in 1896. Read a selection of her poetry