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Home  »  The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century  »  Sarah Doudney (1841–1926)

Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Critical and Biographical Essay by Alfred H. Miles

Sarah Doudney (1841–1926)

MOST widely known as a writer of fiction—especially for girls—Miss Sarah Doudney has composed much tender and sympathetic verse, which, buried in back numbers of magazines, escapes the attention it deserves. Her hymns are to be found in many collections, English and American, and one of her songs, “The Lesson of the Water Mill,” which has for its refrain the lines

  • The Mill cannot grind
  • With the water that is past,
  • is said to have become nationalised in America. Miss Doudney has published “Psalms of Life” (1871), and later “Drifting Leaves” and “Thistledown,” two dainty booklets of dainty verse. Space will not admit of adequate representation. The following poem has been frequently used as a funeral hymn.