Phoebe Cary, 1824-71
A poem in contemplation of heaven, written in 1852, entitled, “Nearer Home,” with no thought of its being used as a hymn. In fact its original irregular rhythm hardly permitted it to be sung. The words have been changed to fit the short-meter tune, and have become popular as a hymn. Upon reading the story of how the hymn was instrumental in the conversion of two gamblers in China, who, after betting and drinking and card playing, decided upon a change of life and consecrated themselves to Christian work, Miss Cary wrote to a friend:
I enclose the hymn and story for you, not because I am vain of the notice, but because I thought you would feel a peculiar interest in them when you knew the hymn was written eighteen years ago (1852) in your house. I composed it in the little, back, third-story bedroom on Sunday morning after coming from church, and it makes me happy to think that any word I could say has done a little good in the world.
Phoebe Cary was born on a farm near Cincinnati, Ohio. Her early days were a struggle with hardship and poverty. “I have cried in the street because I was poor,” she wrote in her later and more prosperous years, “and the poor always seem nearer to me than the rich.” With her sister Alice Carey, she published a small volume of verse in 1849, then the two moved to New York City where they became quiet but influential leaders in literary society. Their friendship with Whittier was a noted factor in the lives of the Carey sisters. Phoebe was a member of the Church of the Pilgrims in New York, and later attended the Church of the Stranger in the same city.
MUSIC. DULCE DOMUM is an arrangement from the composer’s popular song, “One sweetly solemn song,” later published as an anthem.
Robert Steele Ambrose, 1824-1908, born in England, came with his parents to Canada in his first year. He prepared himself for the musical profession and became organist successively in churches in Guelph, Kingston, and Hamilton, Ontario. He is known best by the above-mentioned song.
265. Sunset and evening star
Alfred Tennyson, 1809-92
A song of immortality, written in ten minutes in the author’s eighty-first year. It is always printed at the end of Tennyson’s poems. Tennyson once said: “I can hardly understand how any great, imaginative man, who has lived, suffered, thought and wrought, can doubt of the soul’s continuous progress in the after life.”
The poem was written on an October day in 1889, as the poet was crossing from Aldworth to Farringford. Tennyson’s son wrote in his Memoir of his father, concerning its origin: