SOURCE: “Keble,” in Studies in Poetry and Philosophy, Hurd and Houghton, 1872, pp. 204–68.

In the following essay, Shairp provides a summary of Keble's participation in the Oxford Movement and a critical analysis of The Christian Year.

The closing chapter of Lockhart's “Life of Scott” begins with these words: “We read in Solomon, ‘The heart knoweth his own bitterness, and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy;’ and a wise poet of our own time thus beautifully expands the saying—

“‘Why should we faint and fear to live alone,           Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die, Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,           Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh?’” 

On glancing to the footnote to see who the wise poet of our own time might be, the reader saw, for the first time might be, the reader saw, for the first time...