Love Sonnets

John Evelyn Barlas was born in Burma (now Myanamar) in 1860. He was educated at the elite Merchant Taylors' School, then located at Goswell Street in London, before studying at New College, Oxford. Here he befriended and became intimate with Oscar Wilde.Having served as an organizer for the Social Democratic Federation and contributed to William Morris' socialist journal Commonweal, he demonstrated in Trafalgar Square on Bloody Sunday where he was allegedly 'batoned and floored'. Life as a revolutionary socialist was not exactly a mellow life. Barlas was also briefly associated with the Rhymers' Club, a drinking club who's primary meeting place was at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street, London and who produced two volumes of verse as a side venture. Between 1884 and 1893 he published 8 volumes of verse including 'The Bloody Heart', 'Phantasmagoria: Dream-Fugues' and 'Love Sonnets'. He was included in the decadent movement of poetry and usually published under the name Evelyn Douglas.His work, curiously devoid of socialist themes given his previous history, was much admired by contemporary authors. Additionally he was a brilliant conversationalist, a compelling personality and burdened with good looks.However his fragile mental health was often at odds with his intense emotions.On the morning on New Year's Eve 1891 he was arrested after walking to Westminster Bridge and firing three shots at the House of Commons in an apparent attempt to show his contempt for its workings.Oscar Wilde stood bail but it was the beginning of a deeper slide into mental health problems. Eventually he was admitted to Gartnavel Asylum in Glasgow, where he spent much of his later life.John Barlas died in 1914 in Gartnavel Asylum. He was 54.