Background
Chant was born on 9 October 1848, in Woollaston, Gloucestershire, the daughter of Francis William Dibbin (1811-1874), a civil engineer and Sophia Ormiston (1815-1894), who managed a girls institution.
(This historic book may have numerous typos and missing te...)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ...festive strains, Of rills that laugh with happiness, And fountains ringing changes rare On many a weedy wilderness, Where water-spirits, echoing The love-songs that the rivers sing, Send music to the plains! Come forth, for all the world is ours To give, and take to-day! And heaven with stars for bridal crown Doth circle all the white-winged hours, And to the eager earth come down With messages ethereal, From great ones, who imperial Love's peerless kingdom sway. Come forth, come forth, the sunshine calls And I, I wait thee, sweet. Low music slumberous steals near, Where soft thy coming footstep-falls; And lo the light grows warm and clear, It is thy smile! all earth doth move To make the marriage joy of love Pure, beautiful, complete! IT was the early afternoon, and chill Crept the west wind of Autumn through the trees, Lifting the crisp brown leaves inquiringly, As though to ask them why they lay _so still On the damp ground, when all about was stirred With the wild movement of the busy air? And the sweet trouble of the pools replied Out from the bending rushes, "They are dead." Through the low alleys of the underwood, Made by the stealthy creeping of the fox, Passed the moist wind with fungus-laden breath. Here, the dark leaves of worn-out violets Bloomed with the mystic wonders of decay, Craving wind-blessings on the cluster-cups, Decking fast fading beauty for the tomb. There, the stripped branches of the eglantine Glowed with the scarlet berries of her prime; And the fool's parsley from her umbels dropt Tears of bewailment on the heedless wind. Here, a late bramble, sheltered from rough storms, By the low-hanging of an ivy-bole, Flaunted one puny, ill-timed blossom forth, Wreck of the happy days of flower,...
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Chant was born on 9 October 1848, in Woollaston, Gloucestershire, the daughter of Francis William Dibbin (1811-1874), a civil engineer and Sophia Ormiston (1815-1894), who managed a girls institution.
Her parents were highly disciplinary and she ran away from home aged fifteen. She worked as a nursing sister in the Sophia Wards in the London Hospital. Working as a nurse, considered a rough occupation at the time, her father banned her from ever returning home.
They had Thomas, Emmeline, Olive and Ethel Chant.
Ormiston wrote and lectured on social purity, temperance, and women"s rights. She also wrote the words and music for Action Songs for Children and several more volumes of music in the same vein, consisting of simple ditties embodying physical exercises for small children.
In 1893 Chant addressed the 1893 Parliament of the World"s Religions, held in Chicago in conjunction with the Columbian Exposition. Her subject was Duty of God to Manitoba Inquired.
In 1895 she started attacking music-halls as temptations to vice
She went to Bulgaria to give aid to Armenian refugees from the 1894-1896 Hamidian massacres. Chant died in Banbury, Oxfordshire, 16 February 1923.
(This historic book may have numerous typos and missing te...)
Her published works include pamphlets, hymns, a novel and a book of poetry and are described as reflecting "many of the tensions characterizing feminism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries".