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This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com Poems CecilFrancesAlexander,WilliamAlexander POEMS •s I « ». 1 '."...•''* '•' I. «.'.'' ."*.,!• M,i . i V \ . ' ' •• ! •• ' .••. K "•' ••. V POEMS BY CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER (C. F. AfT^ EDITED, WITH A PREFACE, BY WILLIAM ALEXANDER D.D. OXON, LL.D. DUBLIN, D.C.L. OXON, ARCHBISHOP OP ARMAGH AND PRIMATE OF ALL IRELAND. ftontoou MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. NEW YORK : MACMILLAN & CO. 1896 The Right of Translation a,ut Reproduction is Reserved RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY. P/e PREFACE I. """THE biographical portion of this Preface must necessarily be brief. Such as it is, how ever, it may tend to convey some notion of the circumstances by which Mrs. Alexander's life was moulded, and of the surroundings by which her poetry was tinged. Cecil Frances Humphreys was the daughter of Major John Humphreys, a Norfolk man by birth. The Major served with distinction in the Royal Marines, and was present at the Battle of Copenhagen. He used to tell with pride how he had seen Nelson move into action and heard him cry to Captain Inman as he passed by, " Well done, Harry ! " Major Humphreys be came a landowner in Wicklow and Tyrone, and an extensive land-agent in the north of Ireland, where he resided for many years at vi PREFACE Miltown House, near Strabane. Whilst he was living at Ballykean, in the county Wicklow, a tender attachment sprang up between the Ladies Howard, daughters of the Earl of Wicklow, and Fanny and her sisters. Lady Harriet Howard in particular, a girl of much charm and talent, became a very sister of the heart to Fanny. Both these gifted natures came early under the influence of the Oxford Movement and felt constrained to spread the light that was in them. They conceived the idea of writing tracts, the prose part of which was to be con tributed by Lady Harriet, whilst Fanny was to illustrate the themes with the tender and tinted pencil of poetry. For, indeed, from very early days she had " lisped in numbers " and supplied a weekly periodical, composed and written out in the family circle, with verses serious or comic. The tracts were published separately, began to be circulated in 1842-43, excited a good deal of observation, and were collected -into a volume in 1848. In 1843 circumstances led to an event of importance in the mental and spiritual history of Fanny Humphreys. Her sister Annie (now Mrs. Maguire, widow of the Rev. John M. Maguire, rector of Kilkedy) happened to be at Leamington in 1843, where she became intimate with Miss Hook, and through her with PREFACE vii her brother, the famous vicar of Leeds, after wards Dean of Chichester. Fanny visited Lea mington in 1847, and for the first time at Miss Hook's house met Dr. Hook. The result was that he became the editor of her Verses for Holv Seasons. From this sane and masculine influ ence arose one of the elements which enabled her to. be in a singular degree the hymnist of the whole English-speaking communion, and to appeal to all its children. There was in her an ineradicable sympathy with the great evange lical principles which in all ages and in all Churches have been the life of true religion. In her earliest years she was imbued with them by her excellent mother, and by the Hon. and Rev. William Wingfield, her first preceptor in Scrip ture. For many years at Strabane the deep and burning words of her beloved friend and rector, the Rev. James Smith, sank into her soul. Later on, Mr. Keble edited her Hvmns for Little Children and endowed her with a sense of the magic, of the sacred and mysterious romance, of the Church system. But to any formidable exaggeration of this Dr. Hook supplied her with an antidote, by inspiring her with a lifelong conviction of the truth, the justice, the necessity, of the English Reformation. Of the particulars of Fanny's acquaintance with viii PREFACE the author of the Christian Year, no record has, as yet, been found among her papers. Mr. Keblc edited her Hvmns for Little Children long before she had met him. I do not quite know how the Hvmns were brought to his notice. It may possibly have been through the eloquent and philosophical Professor W. Archer Butler — the Burke of Anglican theology — a neighbour of her family during several years of their residence at Miltown House. More probably, perhaps, the introduction came through one of the Palmer family. Lady Palmer resided near Farnborough, where Fanny was somewhat frequently a visitor and became intimate with Lady Palmer's three nieces who married three Colonial Bishops — the Bishops of New Zealand, Barbadoes, and Nova Scotia. In October, 1850, Cecil Frances Humphreys was married in Strabane Church to the Editor of this volume, then rector of Termonamongan in the diocese of Derry, a union which was destined to last for forty-five happy years. At that time it is not the exaggeration of affection which says that she was a singularly attractive person. Her frame was lithe and active. Her face had no pretension whatever to regular beauty ; but it possessed the sensitive susceptibility, the magic quickness of transition, the sacred indignation, PREFACE ix the flash of humour, the pathetic sweetness, with which genius endows its chosen children. The parish with which we had to deal was a wild one, with a church population of some 1,500 people, scattered over bogs and mountains for many miles. According to modern views the church was poor and mean, for the great Church move ment was a distant portent, which had scarcely touched Ireland. In her own words — " Looking down the mountain bare, We saw the white church by the river, And we could hear, when winds were fair, O'er the low porch the one bell quiver." Her elastic step brushed the heath in all weathers, and not seldom she walked several miles to meet her husband returning from some distant tramp. It may be best here to insert a simple and beautiful letter of the present rector of Termonamongan : — THE LATE MRS. ALEXANDER. TO THE EDITOR OF THE " IRISH TIMES." SIR, — In your issue of Saturday last an article appeared from your pen on the funeral of the above- named gifted lady. In the just and noble tribute there recorded to her memory you refer to her work in the Parish of Termonamongan, County Tyrone x PREFACE (not Co. Donegal, as stated), to which she came a bride in the year 1850. Truly, as you say, " hers was not the life of the dreamy votary of verse, but was passed in the daily exercise of an exquisite sensibility for the needs and comforts of a remote Irish parish. Many a gleam of golden sunshine would she kindle as she entered a desolate home where penury and sickness struggled for the mastery. No inclemency of weather, or dis tance to travel, or visits of friends, were permitted to interfere with the ministrations of condolence, counsel, or charitable help." The following facts, elicited from those who still remember Mrs. Alexander's work in the parish, fully corroborate what you have written. My church warden has told me of her visits to an old woman afflicted with paralysis, and, seeing that she had not sufficient bed-covering, she took off her own shawl and wrapped it around the poor sufferer. From the same source I have heard of her daily visits for six weeks to a woman suffering from cancer, and of how lovingly and tenderly she every day for those six weeks dressed the sore. Ellen Hoynes. a Roman Catholic, the woman referred to, is still living in the neighbourhood, and in all probability owes her life to the loving care then bestowed upon her. The parish clerk still remembers her carrying soup and other nourishment to the sick and poor in the most remote parts of the parish and in the most PREFACE xi inclement weather, and often has he seen her returning from her ministrations of loving and practical sympathy wet through. I cannot refrain from mentioning another case differing from the above, which shows the great interest she took in all classes of the parish. She sent a man to school whose education had been somewhat neglected in his youth, and gave him a weekly allowance towards his maintenance out of her own purse, and when he had made sufficient progress Mrs. Alexander procured an appointment for him as national school teacher. As beautifully put in her exquisite hymn, " There is a green hill far away," She trusted in His Redeeming Blood, And tried His works to do. Time would fail one to tell of all her work and labour of love here. The good she did, the help afforded, her gentle, loving, self-denying ministry in this parish, will never be known " until the day break, and the shadows flee away."— Yours, &c., WILLIAM VERNER, Rector of Termonamongan. LISNACLOON HOUSE, CASTLEDERG, 22nd October, 1895. She made and copied out, with exquisite neat ness, a list of every townland in the parish, entered the names of the inmates of every house, with particulars about attendance at Sunday School, Confirmation, Holy Communion. There xii PREFACE is also still extant, in her hand, an analysis of a great part of Hammond's " Practical Catechism," drawn up mainly from her husband's dictation, for use in the schools.