All Things Bright and Beautiful

DESCRIPTION: "All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small... The Lord God made them all. "The purple-headed mountains, The river running by, The sunset and the morning That lightens up the sky."
AUTHOR: Cecil Frances (Humphreys) Alexander (1818-1895) (source: Julian)
EARLIEST DATE: 1848 (Hyms for Little Children, according to Julian)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 135, "(All Things Bright and Beautiful)" (1 fragment)
Roud #25389
NOTES [155 words]: John Julian, editor, A Dictionary of Hymnology, 1892; second edition 1907 (I use the 1957 Dover edition in two volumes), p. 46, reports that this is "A successful and popular hymn for children, on the article of the Creed, 'Maker of Heaven and Earth,' which appeared in her Hymns for Little Children, 1848."
Alice Kane seems to have been taught a lot of Alexander poems; she also cited her "Day by Day the Little Daisy," "We Are But Little Children Weak," and her famous "All Things Bright and Beautiful." She also wrote "Once In Royal David's City" and "There Is a Green Hill Far Away."
Alexander was born Cecil Frances Humphreys in 1823 and married W. Alexander, Bishop of Derry and Raphoe in 1850, according to Julian, p. 38. She reportedly wrote almost 400 hymns, both for children and adults, although the former were much more popular; Julian called some of her adult hymns "rather heavy" and "dull." She died in 1895. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: KSUC135A

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