The Child and the Angel

Fanny's hymns served a functional purpose so she often sacrificed artistry for message or meter. It is necessary to look at her poetry in order to get a more well rounded understanding of her talent.

The following example was typical of her
emotional style and full-bodied images.

A mother sat musing at close of day by the cradle bed where her firstborn lay;
On the dimpled cheek of that cherub fair had fallen a ringlet of golden hair;
And thither a truant sunbeam strayed, and long with that beautiful tress it played,
Till it faded away in the crimson west, and sank like the innocent child to rest.

Why trembled a tear in that mother's eye as she warbled her simple lullaby,
And her soulfelt prayer on the breath of even went up to the throne of her God in heaven?
Can ye fathom the ocean, dark and deep, where the mighty waves and the grandeur sweep?

Or number the radiant orbs above? Ah, then may ye fathom a mother's love;
That pearly tear was a gem more fair than the ruby bright or the diamond rare,
For it told what language could ne'er reveal, a love which a mother alone can feel.

From the fount of life and the source of light, from the sacred fields of Elysium bright,
Through the cloudless depths of ethereal blue, quickly the form of an angel flew;
O soft was the breath of the balmy air as it felt the touch of his pinions fair
Diffusing aromas sweet from flowers of amaranth cradled in Eden's bowers.

A tear was still in that mother's eye as she warbled her simple lullaby,
For she looked on the angel form that smiled on the cherub face of her sleeping child;
And she heard low music of heavenly joy wooing the soul of her darling boy.

There were anxious thoughts in her throbbing breast as his pallid lips to her own were pressed;
A moment his eye grew strangely bright, then closed in a long and last good night;
The angel of mercy, the child of love, together had flown to the realms above.

(contributed by lisa ann moss degrenia)