Text · full lyrics
Each little flow'r that opens,
each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colors,
He made their tiny wings.
The purple-headed mountain,
the river running by,
the sunset and the morning
that brightens up the sky.
All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful,
it's God who made them all.
The cold wind in the winter,
the pleasant summer sun,
the ripe fruits in the garden:
He made them every one.
He gave us eyes to see them,
and lips that we might tell
how great is God Almighty,
who has made all things well.
All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful,
it's God who made them all.
The lyricist
Cecil Frances Alexander
Alexander wrote verse for children and spent her days visiting the sick and the poor, traveling miles to Protestant and Catholic homes alike; proceeds from her books went partly to a school for deaf children she helped found. Her hymns grew out of the Oxford Movement and her admiration for John Keble, but their real engine was a teaching impulse — she set out to explain the Apostles' Creed to children, clause by clause. "All Things Bright and Beautiful" is the clause "Maker of heaven and earth," published in her 1848 collection Hymns for Little Children; its parade of flowers, birds, and purple-headed mountains is a child's-eye gloss on a single line of the creed.