W. H. (William Henry) Davies

Born in Newport, Wales, in 1871, W. H. Davies left school young and worked at practical jobs before spending years on the road in Britain and the United States. Those restless years shaped both his life and his writing, giving him firsthand knowledge of poverty, travel, and the people living on society’s edges.

Davies eventually turned those experiences into books and poems that reached a wide audience. His memoir The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp helped establish his reputation, and his poetry became admired for its direct language, musical ease, and close attention to nature and everyday life.

Rather than writing in a grand or complicated style, he had a gift for simplicity. That plain, memorable voice helped make him one of the most popular poets of his time, and poems such as Leisure have kept his work alive for later generations.