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Cecil Frances Alexander
Hymn Writer / Poet
One of the most sung Easter hymns,
180
- He Is Risen,
was penned by Cecil Frances
("Fanny") Alexander. Her particular goal was to
bring religious knowledge to children. "Hymns for Little
Children," published in 1848, amplified the Baptismal
Promises. Three hymns from this collection are in our hymnal
and relate to phrases of the Apostles Creed: "
"Maker of Heaven and Earth" --
405 - All things bright and beautiful"Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary" --
102 - Once in royal David's city"Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried" --
167 - There is a green hill far away.
Other Alexander hymns we sing are 550 - Jesus calls us and 370 - I bind unto myself today. The 1916 Episcopal Hymnal containes 11 Alexander hymns; these are available online in text-only format, with link to music.
Go to the Cyberhymnal for links to more of her hymns. You'll find a web page on her Hymns for Little Children, including a hymn that we would not ask our children to sing today. You'll find other general reference at Old Poetry.com, ILovePoetry.com. and Representative Poetry Online.
A short biography may be found at the Cathedral of Belfast website.
The most extensive reference to Alexander and her work is reproduced below from a webpage of the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monoco.
Life
1818-1895 [née
Cecil Frances Humphreys; occas. err. Cecilia;
pseuds. ‘CFA’; ‘X’]; b. 1818 [var.
1825], Dublin [vars. Co. Wicklow and Miltown Hse., nr.
Strabane]; dg. and 3rd child of orig. the former Elizabeth
Reed and Major John Humphreys of Norfolk, land-agent to 4th
Earl of Wicklow and later to the second Marquess of
Abercorn; began writing verse at early age; influenced in
religion by Dr Hook, Dean of Chichester, and subsequently by
John Keble, who edited her Songs for Little Children; contrib. lyric and narrative poems and
French translations to Dublin University Magazine under pseuds. [as supra]; her "Burial of
Moses" appeared anon. in Dublin University Magazine (1856) causing Tennyson to profess it one
of the few poems of a living author he wished he had
written; friendship with Lady [Harriet] Howard while living
at Ballykean, Co. Wicklow, collaborated on tracts, published
separately and then brought together; Lady Harriet died of
consumption; issued Verses
for Holy Seasons (1846)
The Lord of the Forest and
his Vassals (1847),
allegory for children; Hymns for Little Children (1848); influenced in religion by the Oxford
movement; met Miss Hook and her brother Dr. Hook, who edited
her volume Verses for Holy
Seasons, while visiting her
sister Anne Humphreys Maguire, in Leamington; m. Rev.
William Alexander
Oct. 1850, Strabane Church, then recorder of Termonamongan,
diocese of Derry; six years older than he, causing great
family concern, and birthdate deferentially altered
accordingly; resided at at Derg Lodge, Termonamongan before
moving to Upper Fahan, on Lough Swilly, 1855; lived at
Strabane, 1860-67, with trips to France; William appt.
bishop of Derry and Raphoe in 1867; much involved with Derry
Home for Fallen Women and with the development of a district
nurses service; indefatigable visitor to poor and sick;
seven of her hymns
included in Church of Ireland Hymnal
(1873), the first to be authorised after Disestablishment,
eighteen contained in A
Supplement to Hymns Ancient and Modern (1889), nine appearing in Church of Ireland Hymnal (1960, 1987 edns.); wrote elegies for Mrs.
Hemans, Robert Southey and Kaiser Wilhelm; d. 12 Oct.,
Derry; her poems posthumously collected and edited by
William Alexander
in Poems of the late Mrs
Alexander (1896), with a "Memoir"; her home in the
episcopal residence in Derry is marked by a plaque.
CAB DNB JMC TAY DIB DIW RAF ODQ
OCIL
Works
Verses for Holy
Seasons, ed. Dr. Hook
(1846), Do.,
(London: Bell & Daldy,
1858); Hymns for Little Children (1848); 4th edn. 1850; 5th ed., 1852; edns.,
in 1857, 1862, 1864, 1867, 1878; 62nd edn. 1884; pictorial
edn., (London: CKS 1903), in all 69 edns. [infra]; The Lord
of the Forest and his Vassals, (1847), [an allegory for children];
Moral Songs,
&c. (1849), 2nd edn.
[1850], another edn. (1855), another edn., ill. L. Masters
(1880), 14 edns.; Narrative
Hymns for Village Schools (1853); [var. title], Hymns for Village Schools
(1854; Poems of Subjects in the Old
Testament (1854;
Dublin University
Magazine, Vol. XLVII
(1856): pp.462-64.; Hymns, Descriptive and Devotional (1958), Do., (J.
Masters & Co. 1880; The
Legends of the Golden
Prayers, and Other
Poems (London: Bell &
Daldy 1859); Easy Questions
on the Life of Our Lord
(London: Griffth & Farran 1891); Hymns for Children (London: Marcus Ward & co. [1894]);
William Alexander,
ed. and pref., Poems of the
Late Mrs Alexander ['CFA']
(London: Macmillan & Co. 1896), five pts., with port
[with Memoir by her husband]; A. P. Graves. ed.,
Selected Poems from William
and Cecil Frances Alexander (London: Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge 1930); The Baron's
Little Daughter
(1838).
Hymns for Little Children (1848) contains "All things bright and beautiful!", "There is a green hill far away" and "Once in Royal David's city".
Church of Ireland Hymnal (OUP 1960; 1987) include her hymns listed as Nos.: 97 ['When wounded sore, the stricken soul / Lies bleeding and unbounded']; 98 ['When my lip confesses / Bitter shame and pride [...]'; 120 ['His are the thousand sparkling rills / That from a thousand fountains burst']; 154 ['The gold gates are lifted / The doors are open wide']; 177 ["James the Apostle" - 'For all they saints, a noble throng']; 202 ["St Columba"; as infra]; 320 ["Eisighim Indiu", attrib. St Patrick ['I bind unto myself today / The strong name of the Trinity']; 392 ['There is a Green hill far away / Without a city wall / Where the dear Lord was crucified / Who died to save us all']; 602 ["All things bright and beautiful!"]; 606 ["Do no sinful action"]; 624 ["Once in Royal David's city"].
Criticism
Eleanor Alexander,
Primate
Alexander: Archbishop of Armagh (London: Edward Arnold, 1914); W. O.
Ernest, A Green Hill Far
Away: The Life of Mrs. C .F. Alexander (Dublin/London: S.P.C.K. [Assoc. for
Promoting Christian Knowledge], 1970); Seán MacMahon,
'All Things Bright and Beautiful,' [Appreciation],
Eire-Ireland, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Winter 1975) [var. 10.3],
pp.137-41; David
Stevens, 'Religious Ireland
(II)', in Edna Longley, ed., Culture in Ireland, Diversity or Division
[Proceedings of the
Cultures of Ireland Group Conference] (Belfast: QUB/IIS
1991), p.145; Valerie Wallace, Mrs Alexander: A Life of the Hymn-writer
Cecil Frances Alexander 1818-1895 (Dublin: Lilliput Press 1995), viii, 198pp.,
noticed in 'Brief Notes', Times Literary Supplement (27 Oct. 1995), p.33, and by John Kirkaldy,
Books Ireland
(Sept. 1995), p.218; Rolf
Loeber and Magda Stouthamer-Loebber, 'Fiction Available to
and Written for Cottages and their Children', in Bernadette
Cunningham and Máire Kennedy, eds., The Experience of Reading: Irish Historical
Perspectives (Dublin: Rare
Books Group 1999), p.150.
See also P. J. Kavanagh, Voices in Ireland (London: Murray 1994); Katie Donovan, A. N. Jeffares, and Brendan Kennelly, eds., Ireland's Women (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1994).
Commentary
David Stevens, 'Religious Ireland
(II)', in Edna Longley, ed., Culture in Ireland, Diversity or Division
[Proceedings of the
Cultures of Ireland Group Conference] (Belfast: QUB/Inst. of
Irish Studies 1991), p.145; Stevens quotes a hymn by
Alexander which was sung in her husband's Cathedral
on the day of Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland;
'Look down, Lord of heaven on our desolation, / Fallen,
fallen, fallen is now our Country's crown, / Dimly down the
New year as a Churchless nation, / [?M]ammon and Amalek
tread our borders down.' Stevens comments, 'Disestablishment
marks the start of Protestant defeat and withdrawal.'
(p.145.)
P. J. Kavanagh, Voices in Ireland (London: John Murray 1994), writes that Tennyson is said to proclaimed "The Burial of Moses" a poem he wishes he had written himself; it was also one of the favourites of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain); there is an account of his response to it in Miss Alexander's memoir (cited more fully in Kavanagh, p.103); note also that Mrs Craik heard the Siege of Derry shortly after it was written, and predicted that it would be as well known as Macaulay's account of the siege in his History of England (which Kavanagh quotes, with emphasis on its lurid anti-Papism). See also article in Times Literary Supplement (16 Feb. 2001), with remarks: Mark Twain was fond of quoting Cecil Alexander's hymn, ‘By Nebo’s lonely mountain/On this side Jordan’s wave/In a vale in the land of Moab/There lies a lonely grave./And no man knows that sepulchre/And no man say it e’er,/For the Angles of God upturned the sod/And laid the dead man there.’ (Poems on Subjects in the Old Testament).
Valerie Wallace, Mrs Alexander: A Life of the Hymn-writer Cecil Frances Alexander 1818-1895 (Dublin: Lilliput Press 1995) [1 874675 46 5]; reviewer in 'Brief Notes', Times Literary Supplement (27 Oct. 1995), p.33, remarks: ‘engaging, fresh, and meticulously researched ... sympathetic insight into culture of 19th c. Ascendancy at its most serious’); also reviewed by John Kirkaldy, in Books Ireland (Sept. 1995), p.218.
Quotations
"Breastplate of St. Patrick": 'I bind unto myself today the strong name
of the Trinity / The three in one and one in three. / Of
whom all nature hath creation, Eternal Father, Spirit, Word,
Praise to the Lord of my salvation, / Salvation is of Christ
the Lord.' ()
"All Things Bright and Beautiful!": 'The rich man in his castle, / The poor man at his gate, / God made them, high or lowly, / And order'd their estate'. (From "The Burial of Moses"), 'By Nebo's lonely mountain / On this side Jordan's wave, / In a vale of the land of Moab / There lies a lonely grave. / And no man knows that sepulchre / And no man saw it e'er, / For the angels of God upturned the sod / And laid the dead man there.' Also, 'There is a green hill far away, / Without a city wall, / Where the dear Lord was crucified, who died to save us all'.
Church of Ireland Hymnal (OUP 1960; 1987) include among her hymns: Nos. 97 ['When wounded sore, the stricken soul / Lies bleeding and unbounded']; 98 ['When my lip confesses / Bitter shame and pride']; 120 ['His are the thousand sparkling rills / That from a thousand fountains burst']; 154 ['The gold gates are lifted / The doors are open wide']; 177 ["James the Apostle"; 'For all they saints, a noble throng']; 202 ["St Columba", 'In the roll call of god's sons / Sounding sweet and solemn / Name we mid his chosen ones / Ulster's own Saint Columb // Not without his age's taint / Fierce and unrelenting / Stern apostle, weeping saint / Sinful and repenting // Creeds he taught barbaric men / Are our children saying / Prayers he prayed in danger then / Daily we are praying // From his home and kindred skies / Self-exiled for ever / Fond he sought with dying eyes / Foyle his oak-crowned river // King of saints, of whom we hold / Hope of our election? By thy spirit do us mould / To they saints' perfection / Till we see thee evermore / Ransomed by they dying / With the saved on that far shore / 'neath thine alter lying. Amen']; 320 ["Eisighim Indiu", attrib. St Patrick ['I bind unto myself today / The strong name of the Trinity']; 392 ['There is a Green hill far away / without a city wall / Where the dear Lord was crucified / Who died to save us all']; 602 ['All things bright and beautiful']; 606 ['Do no sinful action']; 624 ['Once in royal David's city']. Also, Translation of "Breastplate of St. Patrick", 'I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity / The three in one and one in three. / Of whom all nature hath creation, Eternal Father, Spirit, Word, Praise to the Lord of my salvation, / Salvation is of Christ the Lord.'
"The Siege of Derry": '[T]hey were soft words that they spoke, how we need not fear their yoke, / And they pleaded by our homesteads, and by our children small, / And our women fair and tender, but we answered: "No surrender!" / And we call on God Almighty, and we went to man the wall.'; further, 'The foemen gathered fast - we could see them marching past- / The Irish from his barren hills, the Frenchman from his wars ... There is none that fighteth for us, O God! but only Thou!' ("The Siege of Derry".)
"Burial of Moses": 'There is a green hill far away, / Without a city wall, / Where the dear Lord was crucified, who died to save us all'.
"St Columba" - 'In the roll call of god's sons / Sounding sweet and solemn / Name we mid his chosen ones / Ulster's own Saint Columb // Not without his age's taint / Fierce and unrelenting / Stern apostle, weeping saint / Sinful and repenting // Creeds he taught barbaric men / Are our children saying / Prayers he prayed in danger then / Daily we are praying // From his home and kindred skies / Self-exiled for ever / Fond he sought with dying eyes / Foyle his oak-crowned river // King of saints, of whom we hold / Hope of our election? By thy spirit do us mould / To they saints' perfection / Till we see thee evermore / Ransomed by they dying / With the saved on that far shore / 'neath thine alter lying. Amen.'
‘The writer’s wish would be to prolong the child’s love of the glorious Old Testament stories, by throwing round them something of the poetical tinge which is attrqactive to almost every mind in opening youth; and thus to connect associations of quiet pleasure with the examples of holy life, and the doctrines of saving truth, which the Bible contains in such exceeding abundance.’ (Poems on Subjects in the Old Testament, n.d.; quoted in John F. Deane, ed., Irish Poetry of Faith and Doubt, Dublin: Wolfhound 1991, p.12.)
References
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: Catholic Univ. of America
1904), gives bio-data: b. Dublin, dg. of Major John
Humphreys; influenced in religion by Dr Hook, Dean of
Chichester, and subsequently by John Keble, who edited her
Songs [var. Hymns]
for Little
Children; her poems
collected and edited by William Alexander
after her death (Poems of
the late Mrs Alexander, 1896); Gounod remarked that the words
“There is a green hill far away” were so
harmonious and rhythmic that they seem to set themselves to
music; “Burial of Moses” appeared anon. in
Dublin University
Magazine, 1856 and caused
Tennyson to say it was one of the few poems of a living
author he wished he had written. [... &c.;]
Oxford Literary Guide identifies Derg Lodge, Termonamongan as her home; cites Narrative Hymns for Village Schools (1853).
Katie Donovan, A. N. Jeffares, & Brendan Kennelly, eds., Ireland's Women (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1994), gives selection.
Notes
Dr. Hook: according to her husband’s memoir, he
guided her with ‘masculine influence’.
Alexander Leeper, DD, Canon of St Patrick's, Historical Handbook of St Patrick's Cathedral (1891), employed as an epigram for the chapter on Monuments her lines, 'Amid the noblest of the land/We lay the sage to rest; / And give the bard an honoured place, / In the great Minster transept,/Where lights like glories fall, / And organ rings, / And the sweet choir sings, / Along the emblazoned walls.'
Dinah Craik [see infra] heard Cecil Alexander's ballad "The Siege of Derry" shortly after it was written, she predicted that it would be as well known as Macaulay's account in his History of England. (See P. J. Kavanagh, Voices in Ireland, 1994.)
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)
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