Cecil Frances Alexander, 1823-1895
A nature song. It was written, as were Hymns [104], “There is a green hill far away,” and [412], “Once in royal David’s city,” to illustrate the Apostle’s Creed, the present being a comment on the phrase, “Maker of heaven and earth.” It is based on Gen. 1:31: “And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.”
One of her stanzas,
The rich man in his castle
The poor man at his gate;
God made them high and lowly
And ordered their estate
is omitted in most hymn books because it is obviously not in keeping with Christian teachings concerning wealth and poverty. (Cf. the Parable of Dives and Lazarus). The author grew up in the wealthy atmosphere of an Irish estate where her father was a land agent.
For further comments on Mrs. Alexander see [Hymn 104].
MUSIC. GREYSTONE. The first stanza, which serves as a “refrain,” is to be sung after each verse. The hymn is an interesting study in metre. In the refrain, the first line is trochaic (— -), but the second changes to the more common iambic (- —). The tune is written to take care of this. It owes its unique effect to this refrain, which keeps coming in with this change of metre accompanied by a change of key from C to G.