Fanny J. Crosby

Fanny J. Crosby (1820—1915) is most famous as a writer of gospel songs, having written songs that appear in virtually every church hymnal up to the present day. She wrote more than 9,000 hymns and gospel songs, besides the secular songs she wrote and the four collections of poetry she had published.

When she was six weeks old she caught a cold. While their family doctor was away, her illness was treated by a man pretending to be a doctor who prescribed hot mustard poultices to be placed on her eyes. This treatment left her blind, and caused the imposter to quickly leave town.

Her hymns were of great significance in the evangelistic campaigns of Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey. Some of her most popular songs include: "Blessed Assurance", "All the Way My Savior Leads Me", "To God Be the Glory", "Rescue the Perishing", and "Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross."

The following poem is from her poetry collection The Blind Girl, and Other Poems (1844). Crosby included an epigraph with the poem, explaining that she visited the Falls in September of 1843 with her blind companions from the New York Institution for the Blind.

Niagara

Awake, my muse! thy wings expand!
----Oh, what sublimity is here!
Niagara's mighty thunders burst
----With awful grandeur on mine ear.
Niagara! on thy brink I stand,
----And taste unutterable bliss;
What pen, what language can portray
----A scene so wonderful as this?
Father Divine!— we lift our hearts
----In humble gratitude to thee—
Who spreads the azure vault above,
----Whose hand controls the boisterous sea!
Thou bades the foaming cataract roll!
----Thou forms the rainbow tints we see!
We gaze— we wonder and admire—
----Niagara!— we are lost in thee.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

Robert Lowry

Robert Lowry (1826—1899) is particularly remembered as a hymn writer. He was appreciated for his preaching too, and would have preferred this to have been his lasting legacy, as he was the pastor of Baptist churches in New York City, Brooklyn, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He served as a professor of literature at the University of Lewisburg (now Bucknell University) and later as its chancellor.

He co-wrote hymns with both Annie Hawks, and Fanny J. Crosby, and was also a music editor for the Biglow & Main Publishing Company. In this role he brought to light hundreds of other gospel songs. One of the books he edited, Pure Gold, sold more than a million copies. Some of his best known hymns include: "Shall We Gather at the River?" and "What Shall Wash Away My Sin?" The popularity of gospel hymns drew many Christian poets of the nineteenth century into this genre.

The following hymn I always associate with Easter, particularly from singing it as a child on Easter Sunday mornings at my grandparents' church in London, Ontario.

Christ Arose

Low in the grave he lay, Jesus my Savior,
waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!

Up from the grave he arose;
with a mighty triumph o'er his foes;
he arose a victor from the dark domain,
and he lives forever, with his saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Vainly they watch his bed, Jesus my Savior,
vainly they seal the dead, Jesus my Lord!

Up from the grave he arose;
with a mighty triumph o'er his foes;
he arose a victor from the dark domain,
and he lives forever, with his saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Death cannot keep its prey, Jesus my Savior;
he tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord!

Up from the grave he arose;
with a mighty triumph o'er his foes;
he arose a victor from the dark domain,
and he lives forever, with his saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.

William Cullen Bryant

William Cullen Bryant (1794—1878) was one of the foremost American poets and public intellectuals of the nineteenth century. Through his poetry he brought the influence of the English romantic poets Coleridge and Wordsworth to American verse — finding inspiration in the natural world around him. He is also known for his hymn writing, and for having translated both The Iliad and The Odyssey.

At first he earned his living as a lawyer, until he made the transition to journalism. He became very influential politically as the editor of the New York Evening Post — supporting such causes as abolition under Lincoln, and the establishing of New York’s Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Unfortunately his newspaper work limited his poetic output. William Cullen Bryant was a mentor to Walt Whitman, and was a great encouragement to the blind hymn writer Fanny Crosby when she was still in school.

In his early poem “Thanatopsis”, Bryant seemed to have forsaken the hope of eternal life. As time progressed — as demonstrated in numerous poems such as “A Forest Hymn” — his views grew more and more consistent with Christian theology.

To a Waterfowl

Whither, ‘midst falling dew,
--While glow the heavens with the last steps of day
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
--Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye
--Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
--Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink
--Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sing
--On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care
--Teaches thy way along that pathless coast—
The desert and illimitable air—
--Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,
--At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
--Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;
--Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
--Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
--Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
--And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,
--Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
--Will lead my steps aright.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about William Cullen Bryant: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca