Born: Cir­ca Ap­ril 8, 1582, Cran­brook, Kent, Eng­land.

Died: Cir­ca De­cem­ber 1650, Hil­gay, Nor­folk, Eng­land.

Son of Giles Fletcher and cou­sin of po­et John Fletch­er, Phin­e­as at­tend­ed Eton and King’s Coll­ege, Cam­bridge. He took Ho­ly Or­ders in 1621, and served at Hel­gay, Nor­folk, al­most 29 years. His best known po­em, “Pur­ple Is­land” (1633), was an al­le­gor­ic­al de­script­ion of man, in the style of Spens­er. His Lo­custes or Apol­ly­on­ists, an an­ti-Je­su­it sa­tire, sug­gest­ed to Milton some ideas for his Paradise Lost.

Sources

Lyrics

1. Drop, Drop, Slow Tears
2. From the Deeps of Grief and Fear