Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Critical and Biographical Essay by Alfred H. MilesCecil Frances Alexander (18231895)
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Though chiefly known as a writer of hymns for children, Mrs. Alexander’s verse displays powers which under greater restraint would have been even more successful upon a higher plane. A sense of the sublime, and an eye for the picturesque, and especially for colour, associated with an easy command of language, and an ear for rhyme and rhythm, are constantly in evidence; and in her lyric, “The Burial of Moses,” have produced a poem which does not seem to fall short of the great subject of which it treats. This is high praise indeed, but the poem bids fair to become a classic. Though not written especially for children, it appeals alike to young and old. A little child of six years of age known to the writer, after hearing it read, declared with enthusiasm that it was the grandest poem she had ever heard. Older critics will scarcely challenge the use of the word “grand” in this connection. Unfortunately in others of her poems Mrs. Alexander did not exercise the same restraint. “The Lonely Grave,” the opening stanzas of which include the following picturesque verse—