Philip Henry Savage was an American poet.

Biography

Born in North Brookfield, Massachusetts

North Brookfield, Massachusetts

North Brookfield is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 4,680 at the 2010 census.For geographic and demographic information on the census-designated place North Brookfield, please see the article North Brookfield , Massachusetts.- History :North Brookfield...

 on February 11, 1868, he was the son of Minot Judson Savage

Minot Judson Savage

Minot Judson Savage was an American Unitarian minister and author.Savage was born in Norridgewock, Maine in 1841. He graduated from the Bangor Theological Seminary in 1864, and for nine years was in the Congregational ministry, being a home missionary at San Mateo and Grass Valley, California,...

, a well-known Unitarian

Unitarianism

Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....

 minister, and Ella A. Dodge. The family moved several times during his early life: to Framingham, then to Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 and finally to Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 in 1874. He graduated from the English High School of Boston

English High School of Boston

The English High School of Boston, Massachusetts is the first public high school in America, founded in 1821. Originally called The English Classical School, it was renamed The English High School upon its first relocation in 1824. The current building is located in Jamaica Plain.-History:Since its...

 in 1885. He worked at the leather and shoe company Bachfelder and Lincoln, spending "a number of years drumming boots and shoes in the northeastern states" before he began attending Harvard in 1889 at age 21. He graduated there in 1893, and was conferred the degree of A.M. in 1896. During his time there, he edited the Harvard Monthly for three years, as well as editing a bi-weekly literary periodical, The Mahogany Tree

The Mahogany Tree

The Mahogany Tree was a weekly literary magazine published from January until December 1892.-Overview:It was started by Mildred Aldrich, and it was supposedly 'devoted solely to the "fine arts"'...

, which was published out of Boston. After spending a year (1893-1894) at the Harvard Divinity School

Harvard Divinity School

Harvard Divinity School is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. The School's mission is to train and educate its students either in the academic study of religion, or for the practice of a religious ministry or other public...

, he became an English instructor in Harvard's English department, and was able to publish his first volume of poems, First Poems and Fragments, in 1895.

Refusing a position as an English instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

, he began work at the Boston Public Library

Boston Public Library

The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was the first publicly supported municipal library in the United States, the first large library open to the public in the United States, and the first public library to allow people to...

 as Secretary to the Librarian (who was, at the time, Herbert Putnam), becoming a Clerk of the Corporation in 1899. On May 31, 1899, he was stricken with appendicitis

Appendicitis

Appendicitis is a condition characterized by inflammation of the appendix. It is classified as a medical emergency and many cases require removal of the inflamed appendix, either by laparotomy or laparoscopy. Untreated, mortality is high, mainly because of the risk of rupture leading to...

, and after a weeklong illness, he died on June 4th at Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts...

. In 1901, his collected poems were posthumously edited and released by his friend, well-known composer and musicologist, Daniel Gregory Mason

Daniel Gregory Mason

Daniel Gregory Mason was an American composer and music critic.-Biography:...

, as the Poems of Philip Henry Savage. Mason praised Savage for "delicate idealism." Savage's nature poetry won the most praise from critics of his time. He was a close friend of another Harvard poet, William Vaughn Moody

William Vaughn Moody

William Vaughn Moody was a United States dramatist and poet. Author of The Great Divide, first presented under the title of The Sabine Woman at the Garrick Theatre in Chicago on April 12, 1906...

, who he entered Harvard with in 1889. Savage is often linked with a group known as the Harvard poets (or the Harvard Pessimists), many of whom died young (such as Trumbull Stickney

Trumbull Stickney

Joseph Trumbull Stickney was an American classical scholar and poet. His style has been characterised as fin de siècle and he is known for his sonnets in particular....

, George Cabot Lodge

George Cabot Lodge

George Cabot "Bay" Lodge , was an American poet of the late 19th and early-20th century.-Early life:Lodge was born in in Boston. His father was Henry Cabot Lodge, a politician. His mother was Anna Cabot Mills Davis Lodge...

 and Hugh McCulloch

Hugh McCulloch (poet)

Hugh McCulloch was an American poet. Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on March 2, 1869, he attended Harvard University and served as an English assistant there from 1892 to 1894. He later went abroad to devote himself to his literary work...

).