Father John Banister Tabb was an American poet, Roman Catholic priest, and professor of English.
Background
He was born at "The Forest, " Amelia County, Virginia, the son of Thomas Yelverton and Marianna Bertrand (Archer) Tabb. His father was seventh in direct line from Humphrey Tabb who settled in Elizabeth City County, Virginia, in 1637. The family had reason to be proud of its fame in the colonial and Revolutionary history of the state. Tabb's boyhood was spent under the influence of the ante-bellum reigime.
Education
His mother and a tutor gave him his first lessons. For poetry and music he showed an early aptitude and passion.
Career
Though his weak eyesight prevented his enlistment in 1861, in the second year of the Civil War he was allowed to go to England with an expedition dispatched to transport supplies for the Confederacy, and in London and Paris he touched briefly the world of letters and the arts.
On his return to Charleston he was transferred to the Robert E. Lee, most daringly successful of the blockade runners, but because of illness was not on the ship when it later fell into Union hands in November 1863. In the spring of 1864 he carried dispatches on the Siren until its capture on June 4. Tabb sank his papers but was taken, court-martialed, and sentenced to prison at Point Lookout, Maryland. One circumstance brought him comfort in prison: he met there Sidney Lanier, whose flute he heard one day as he lay prostrated with fever.
When release came in February 1865, Tabb found Richmond a capitulated city. Until support was unavoidably withdrawn, he studied music in Baltimore. He then taught at Saint Paul's School, Baltimore, and in 1870 for a few months at Racine College, Racine, Wisconsin.
Though he was preparing for the Episcopal ministry, Catholicism had since 1862 increasingly attracted him. The conversion of his friend, Father Alfred Allen Curtis, later bishop of Wilmington, hastened his turning, and on September 8, 1872, he was baptized in the communion. Deciding to take priest's orders, he attended Saint Charles' College, Ellicott City, Maryland (1872 - 75). It was not until 1881, however, that he entered Saint Mary's Seminary in Baltimore to complete his theological studies. He was ordained on December 20, 1884. Meanwhile he taught at Saint Peter's Boys' School in Richmond, Virginia, and at Saint Charles', where, after his ordination, he conducted classes in English for the rest of his active life.
Father Tabb commenced writing poetry when he was in the Confederate service. His first volume, issued privately in 1882 (Litz, post, p. 97), was experimental. His first widely known volume, Poems (1894), preceded by An Octave to Mary (1893), reached a seventeenth edition. By the time of publication of Lyrics (1897), the periodicals bought his poems eagerly. His reputation was further augmented, particularly in England, by Later Lyrics (1902), The Rosary in Rhyme (1904), and A Selection from the Verses of John B. Tabb, compiled by Alice Meynell in 1907.
After his death appeared Later Poems (1910) and The Poetry of Father Tabb (1928), edited by F. A. Litz, which printed selections from manuscript volumes privately owned. The poems in Child Verse (1899) and Quips and Quiddits (1907) are trivialized by Tabb's love of punning and elfish humor.
In spite of his admiration for the romantic poets, his verse bears little resemblance to theirs in form. His most intense lyric utterance suggests the epigrammatic crypticism of Emily Dickinson. His nature poetry is often merely fanciful, but his religious lyrics for their intensity invite comparison with those of the seventeenth-century metaphysical poets.
As a priest Father Tabb never aspired beyond his dear duty at the college. He mingled little with the world beyond the college and the city of Baltimore. To the last he called himself an "unreconstructed rebel" (Ave Maria, Aug. 2, 1930, p. 132). His pupils loved him devotedly, and were molded by his rich and paradoxical nature. Blindness shadowed the last years of his life, and general paralysis preceded his death.
Religion
He converted to the Roman Catholic Church in 1872.