Heusser, Meta

Heusser, Meta the best female song-writer and hymnist in the German language, was born April 6, 1797, at Hirzel, canton Zurich, where her father, Diethelm Schweizer, was pastor. In 1821 she married Dr. Heusser, an eminent physician, who died in 1859, and she herself died January 2, 1876. Some of her poems appeared for the first time under the name of Einer Verborgenen (a hidden one). In 1857 the first volume of her poems was published, and in 1867 a second followed. In the English some of her songs are found in a little volume entitled Hymns from the Land of Luther, and also in Schaff's Christ in Song. A selection of her poems was published at London in 1875, under the title, Alpine Lyrics. See Koch, Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenliedes, 7:377 sq. (B.P.)