FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS "That holy spirit, Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep," as the poet Wordsworth calls Mrs. Hemans, was the daughter of George Browne, a Liverpool merchant. Her writing of verse dated from her childhood, and her first volume of poems was published when she was fifteen years old, several of the pieces having been written in her eleventh year. In 1812 her hand and heart were won by Captain Hemans of the British army, and the event marked the beginning of her many sorrows. S. Austin Allibone, in his Dictionary of Authors, says: Alas, that one so lovely, so loving, and so formed to be loved, should have had occasion for seventeen years — from the sixth year of her marriage until her death, in 1835, she never saw her husband's face-bitterly to bewail that worship which had been the brightest dream of her young and confiding heart." In 1818 Captain Hemans went to Italy, presumably on account of ill-health, leaving his faithful wife behind to support and educate five sons without his aid. He never returned to England; they never met again. The decline in Mrs. Hemans's health began shortly after the separation, but she devoted whatever of strength she could gather to the education of her sons. Volume after volume of poems and prose came from her fertile pen and gifted mind. She spent some years in North Wales and in Lancashire, and in 1831 removed to Dublin, where, after a painful and protracted illness, she laid down the terrible burden of life at the early age of forty-two years, Once, during a visit Mrs. Hemans made to Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford, he said to her: "I should say that you had too many gifts, Mrs. Hemans, were they not all made to give pleasure to those around you." And in parting with her he added, in an impressive tone: "There are some whom we meet and should like ever after to claim as kith and kin, and you are one of these." The following sweet and simple lyric is one of the most familiar of Mrs. Hemans's pieces which have found their way into church hymnals: Calm on the bosom of thy God, Fair spirit, rest thee now! Dust to its narrow house beneath! They that have seen thy look in death, Lone are the paths, and sad the bowers, This is found in Mrs. Hemans's dramatic poem, "The Siege of Valencia," and was supposed to be sung over the bier of Ximena, daughter of Gonzalez, governor of the city during the siege. Very appropriately the first eight lines are inscribed on the monument that marks the restingplace of Mrs. Hemans in St. Anne's churchyard, Dublin. Possibly her most plaintive hymn, which is perfect in pathos and sentiment, is the closing portion of her poem on "The Funeral Day of Sir Walter Scott." The text here given is the abbreviated form: Lowly and solemn be Thy children's cry to Thee, A hymn of suppliant breath, O Father, in that hour, When spear, and shield, and crown, Sustain us, Thou! By Him who bowed to take Was not to pass away; Aid us, O God! Tremblers beside the grave, We call on Thee to save, Hear, hear our suppliant breath, When Mrs. Hemans was sitting beside the deathbed of her mother in January, 1827, her heart found expression in this hymn-prayer, which is very tender and pathetic : Father! that in the olive shade, When the dark hour came on, Oh, by the anguish of that night, Or to the chastened, let Thy might And Thou that, when the starry sky Didst teach adoring faith to cry, |