All Things Bright and Beautiful

"All Things Bright and Beautiful" is an Anglican hymn, also sung in many other Christian denominations. The words are by Cecil Frances Alexander and were first published in her Hymns for Little Children of 1848. The hymn is commonly sung to the hymn tune , composed by William Henry Monk in 1887. Another popular tune is , adapted from a 17th-century English folk tune, "The 29th of May". History The hymn was first published in 1848 in Mrs Cecil Alexander's Hymns for Little Children. It consists of a series of stanzas that elaborate upon the clause of the Apostles' Creed that describes God as "maker of heaven and earth", and has been described as asserting a creationist view of the natural world. It has been suggested that a number of sources may have influenced Alexander's composition. The hymn may have been inspired by Psalm 104, verses 24 and 25: "Oh Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts". The hymn may have been inspired as well by a verse from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: "He prayeth best, who loveth best; All things great and small; For the dear God who loveth us; He made and loveth all." Alternatively, inspiration may have come from William Paley's Natural Theology, published in 1802, that argues for God as the designer of the natural world. For example, the hymn's second verse alludes to "wings" and verse 7 refers to "eyes". Paley cited wings and eyes as examples of complexity of design, analogous to that of a watch, with God as the Divine Watchmaker.