Hymn 2. The Voice of the Creatures

There is a God, all Nature speaks,

Through earth, and air, and seas, and skies;

See, from the clouds his glory breaks,

When the first beams of morning rise:

The rising sun, serenely bright,                                                            O’er the wide world’s extended frame,

Inscribes, in characters of light,

His mighty Maker’s glorious name.

Diffusing life, his influence spreads,

And health and plenty smile around,                                                                

And fruitful fields, and verdant meads,

Are with a thousand blessings crown’d.

Almighty goodness, power divine,

The fields and verdant meads display;

And bless the hand which made them shine,                                                  

With various charms profusely gay.

For man and beast, here daily food

In wide diffusive plenty grows!

And there, for drink, the crystal flood

In streams sweet winding, gently flows.                                                                          

By cooling streams, and softening showers,

The vegetable race are fed,

And trees, and plants, and herbs, and flowers,

Their Maker’s bounty smiling spread.

The flowery tribes, all blooming, rise                                                                

Above the faint attempts of art;

Their bright, inimitable dyes

Speak sweet conviction to the heart. 

Ye curious minds, who roam abroad,

And trace creation’s wonders o’er,                                                        

Confess the footsteps of the God,

And bow before him, and adore.

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 1, pp. 60-61; Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship, no. 2 (all stanzas); Poems, 1780, vol. 1, pp. 40-1; MS, STE 3/1/1 no. 19, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regents Park College,  Oxford.