Morning has broken
Like the first morning,
Blackbird has spoken
Like the first bird.
Praise for the singing!
Praise for the morning!
Praise for them, springing
Fresh from the Word!
Sweet the rain’s new fall
Sunlit from Heaven,
Like the first dewfall
On the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness
Of the wet garden,
Sprung in completeness
Where his feet pass.
Mine is the sunlight,
Mine is the morning,
Born of the one light
Eden saw play.
Praise with elation,
Praise every morning,
God’s re-creation
Of the new day!
I'm old enough to remember Cat Stevens singing 'Morning has broken' on TOTP. The lyrics were written by the children's author and poet Eleanor Farjeon, commissioned specifically for children and to match the tune 'Bunessan'. The subsequent history of the hymn is now inextricably linked to the name Cat Stevens (now Yusuf), but the authorship of the words is less well known and is often conflated with the name of the singer.
I thought of this hymn the other day while walking in the Bin Forest up at Huntly. It had been raining heavily, and the trees were dripping with run off water. The smells were pungent, amongst them wet wood, grass in full flower, the aroma of pine branches and new cones, and that leafy green smell that's hard to describe but seems to depend on rain and its aftermath of sunlight.
I think back to the countless times I've heard this song, in church worship, at weddings and funerals, on radio as song and in orchestrated versions where on hearing the tune 'Bunessan' the mind defaults to Farjeon's lyrics, and for me, to Cat Stevens, singing accompanied by his acoustic guitar and Rick Wakeman's brilliant piano accompaniment and instrumental interludes.
And so a classic is born from the coincidence of a traditional Gaelic tune named after a village on Mull, a hymn written by a children's poet in the 1920's, a singer with an evocative and remarkably clear voice, and an emerging rock instrumentalist whose keyboard accompaniment make the hymn instantly recognisable in its first couple of bars.
What is less obvious is the rounded theology of creation that is woven into the simple words. There are echoes of the Psalms in every verse. It is a hymn of praise inviting the singer to praise, and providing the words and images to do so. The rain, dewfall, bird song, sunrise, and grass are images straight from the great Psalms of creation praise, but transposed to words simple enough for children, and profound in the imaginative stretch required to transport the mind to the Genesis creation narratives.
Words so familiar can become divorced from their literary precursors: 'Where his feet pass', God's recreation of the new day', and especially the last lines of the first stanza, "Praise for them springing, fresh from the Word."; these provide the essential biblical substructure of a hymn that is joyfully exuberant at the sheer extravagance of God's creative artistry, as everything is "sprung in completeness, where his feet pass." And God saw that it was good, very good.
Something of that was felt and smelt in a wet forest, walking with Sheila and Andrew, and remembering Aileen, who loved this song, which we sang at her funeral thanksgiving service. The playfulness of Eden, God's work of creative completion, and God's recreation of each new day - these are hopeful, though at times poignant convictions which I hold to, and pray that each day they will spring fresh from the Word.
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