Born, in Dublin, 14 Dec. 1791. At school at Bath, 1801; at Salisbury, 1803–05; at Winchester Col., 1806–09. To Dublin Univ., 1809; scholar, 1812; B.A., 1814. Ordained, Nov. 1817. Curate of Ballyclog, Tyrone, Dec. 1817 to Jan. 1818; of Castle Caulfield, Donoughmore, 1818–21. Ill-health from 1821. Died at Cove of Cork, 21 Feb. 1823. Works: “The Burial of Sir John Moore; with other poems,” 1825; “Remains,” ed. by J. A. Russell, with memoir (2 vols.), 1825.

Personal

  His habits and manner of life, as a clergyman, were exceedingly simple and primitive. He scarcely ever thought of providing a regular meal. His small cottage contained a few rush-bottomed chairs, a rickety table, and two trunks: one for his papers and the other for his linen. The trunks also did service by covering the broken parts of the floor. The damp paper hung in loose folds from the mouldy walls of the closet where he slept. A dangerous place for a man of a consumptive habit. Between the parlour and the closet was the kitchen, the warmest and most comfortable apartment of the three. This was occupied by a disbanded soldier, his wife, and a numerous band of children, who kept house for the minister, whom they entertained as a lodger, taking possession of the “bit of potato garden” (which went with the cottage) as lords of the soil.

General

  Charles Wolfe has been one of the few who have drawn the prize of probable immortality from a casual gleam of inspiration thrown over a single poem, consisting of only a few stanzas; and these, too, little more than a spirited version from the prose of another. But the lyric is indeed full of fervour and freshness; and his triumph is not to be grudged.

  The famous ode on “The Burial of Sir John Moore.”… Almost immediately it took its place among the four or five best martial poems in our language, pre-eminent for simplicity, patriotic fervour, and manly pathos. It was presently discovered that this poem had been written some years before it was printed, by a young Irishman of much promise who died of a decline in his thirty-second year. When this fact became known, public curiosity was attracted to his name, and an attempt was made by one of his early friends to collect what he had written. Only twelve short pieces, besides the ode, could be discovered; they were mostly songs of love and friendship, full of ardour, and not uninfluenced by the popular Irish manner of Moore.

  The “single speech” accident of Charles Wolfe, the author of the “Burial of Sir John Moore,” which everybody knows, and of absolutely nothing else that is worth a single person’s knowing.

  The Rev. Charles Wolfe, an obscure Irish clergyman, writes a short poem which a friend who had learned it recites to a casual travelling acquaintance. The latter publishes it in the “Newry Telegraph.” Soon it is on the lips of Shelley and Byron, and now there is hardly a reader of the English language who has not read the “Burial of Sir John Moore.” Few indeed are the “occasional” poems that possess so enduring a power to move the heart. Its note of pride and sorrow is tuned to that of all the lofty sorrows of the world, and the very music of the lines with their long, deep vowel sounds, like the burst of solemn passion in Beethoven’s Funeral March, will carry their meaning and emotion to readers of many generations hence. Wolfe wrote but little poetry in his short life, and little of what he wrote can compare with the “Burial Ode.” But the “Song” which he wrote under the influence of a strain of Irish music, to which he was keenly sensitive, has a remarkable intensity of feeling and sweetness of melody.

  The poetical achievements of Wolfe fill but a few pages in the memorial volumes…. Exclusive of some boyish productions, they number no more than fifteen pieces, all of them written almost at random, without any idea of publication, and preserved almost by accident. These, however, present the potentials of a poet of no mean order. The testimony of many contemporaries, afterwards eminent, confirms the impression which his other lyrics convey, that the lines on the burial of Sir John Moore are not, as has been represented, a mere freak of intellect, but the fruit of a temperament and genius essentially poetic.