Forgive, blest shade, the tributary tear

Author: Anne Steele

Anne Steele was the daughter of Particular Baptist preacher and timber merchant William Steele. She spent her entire life in Broughton, Hampshire, near the southern coast of England, and devoted much of her time to writing. Some accounts of her life portray her as a lonely, melancholy invalid, but a revival of research in the last decade indicates that she had been more active and social than what was previously thought. She was theologically conversant with Dissenting ministers and "found herself at the centre of a literary circle that included family members from various generations, as well as local literati." She chose a life of singleness to focus on her craft. Before Christmas in 1742, she declined a marriage proposal from contemporar… Go to person page >

Forgive, blest shade, the tributary tear. Anne Steele. [Death and burial.] In 1760 Miss Steele published in her Poems on Subjects Chiefly Devotional, &c, vol. ii. p. 71, an ode "On the death of Mr. Hervey," in 9 stanzas of 4 lines, and beginning, "O Hervey, honoured name, forgive the tear." From this ode stanzas i., ii. are taken, altered to "Forgive, blest shade, the tributary tear," and used as a hymn in a few collections, including Ellen Courtauld's Psalms, Hymns, &c, 1853, and the American Church Pastorals, Boston, 1864.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)