Ernest Christopher Dowson (2 August 1867 - 23 February 1900) was an English poet, novelist, and short-story writer, often associated with the Decadent movement. The poems collected here contain many poems full of fi-de-siècle world-weariness and melancholic pessimism. Dowson's work clearly shows the influence of the poetry of the French poets - Verlaine, Rimbaud and Baudelaire.