God whose Farm is all Creation

This is a hymn about creation, for the harvest-festival. It was written for all ages, but is sometimes used as a children's song.

It was written by English policeman, journalist, cricket-commentator, poet and author, (Leslie Thomas) John Arlott (1914-1991).

With meter 8.7.8.7, tunes it has been set to include:

SHIPSTON, a traditional English melody, usually used in an arrangement by Ralph Vaughan Williams was published in 1906
GOTT WILL'S MACHEN aka STEINER by Swiss composer and organist Johann Ludwig Steiner (1688 - 1761)
STUTTGART, from the Psalmodia Sacra (1715)
HARVEST GIFTS by American organist and church-musician, Larry J. Long (b. 1954) - used mostly in the USA.

Image adapt from RawPixel - CC0

Downloads

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Sheet music from JW Pepper, tune HARVEST GIFTS

Examples

Virtual choir with piano:

Singer with organ, tune GOTT WILL'S MACHEN

Duet with piano, words on-screen, tune SHIPSTON:

Congregation with organ, tune SHIPSTON:

Singer with electronic keyboard, tune HARVEST GIFTS

Instrumental - piano, tune HARVEST GIFTS:

Instrumental - organ:

Lyrics

The lyrics are copyright so cannot be reproduced here. But they are currently available on this website (page 3). A rough outline is:

1. God, whose farm is all creation,
take the gratitude we give;
take the finest of our harvest,
crops we grow that all may live.

2. Take our ploughing, seeding, reaping,
hopes and fears of sun and rain,
all our thinking, planning, waiting,
ripening into fruit and grain.

3. All our labour, all our watching,
all our calendar of care,
in these crops of your creation,
take, O God: they are our prayer.