Poems
Religious Reflections On Winter: The Creator To Be Praised For All Things
‘Tis night! Oh, now come forth to gaze
Upon the heavens, intense and bright!
Look on yon myriad worlds, and say,
Though beauty dwelleth with the day,
Is not God manifest by night?
Thou that createdst all! Thou Fountain
Of our sun’s light — who dwellest far
From man, beyond the farthest star,
Yet ever present; who dost heed
Our spirits in their human need,
We bless Thee, Father, that we are!
We bless Thee for our inward life;
For its immortal date decreeing;
For that which comprehendeth Thee,
A spark of Thy divinity,
Which is the being of our being.
We bless Thee for this bounteous earth;
For its increase — for corn and wine;
For forest oaks, for mountain rills,
For “cattle on a thousand hills;”
We bless Thee — for all good is Thine.
The earth is Thine, and it Thou keepest,
That man may labour not in vain;
Seed-time and harvest come from Thee;
The early and the latter rain.
The earth is Thine — the summer earth;
Fresh with the dews, with sunshine bright;
With golden clouds in evening hours,
With singing birds and balmy flowers,
Creatures of beauty and delight.
The earth is Thine — the teeming earth;
In the rich, bounteous time of seed,
When man goes forth in joy to reap,
And gathers up his garnered heap
Against the time of storm and need.
The earth is Thine — when days are dim,
And leafless stands the stately tree;
When from the north the fierce winds blow
When falleth fast the mantling snow;
The earth pertaineth still to Thee.
The earth is Thine — Thy creature, man!
Thine are the worlds, all suns that shine;
Darkness and light, and life and death;
Whate’er all space inhabiteth;
Creator! Father! all are Thine.
Upon the heavens, intense and bright!
Look on yon myriad worlds, and say,
Though beauty dwelleth with the day,
Is not God manifest by night?
Thou that createdst all! Thou Fountain
Of our sun’s light — who dwellest far
From man, beyond the farthest star,
Yet ever present; who dost heed
Our spirits in their human need,
We bless Thee, Father, that we are!
We bless Thee for our inward life;
For its immortal date decreeing;
For that which comprehendeth Thee,
A spark of Thy divinity,
Which is the being of our being.
We bless Thee for this bounteous earth;
For its increase — for corn and wine;
For forest oaks, for mountain rills,
For “cattle on a thousand hills;”
We bless Thee — for all good is Thine.
The earth is Thine, and it Thou keepest,
That man may labour not in vain;
Seed-time and harvest come from Thee;
The early and the latter rain.
The earth is Thine — the summer earth;
Fresh with the dews, with sunshine bright;
With golden clouds in evening hours,
With singing birds and balmy flowers,
Creatures of beauty and delight.
The earth is Thine — the teeming earth;
In the rich, bounteous time of seed,
When man goes forth in joy to reap,
And gathers up his garnered heap
Against the time of storm and need.
The earth is Thine — when days are dim,
And leafless stands the stately tree;
When from the north the fierce winds blow
When falleth fast the mantling snow;
The earth pertaineth still to Thee.
The earth is Thine — Thy creature, man!
Thine are the worlds, all suns that shine;
Darkness and light, and life and death;
Whate’er all space inhabiteth;
Creator! Father! all are Thine.
Analysis (ai): The poem follows a liturgical rhythm, echoing hymn-like patterns common in early Victorian devotional verse, with repetitive invocations of praise that emphasize divine omnipresence across nature’s cycles.
- Engagement with Nature and Divinity: Unlike many Romantic-era works that personify nature or center human emotion, this poem subordinates nature entirely to the Creator, presenting seasonal changes as evidence of divine order rather than sources of personal reflection.
- Form and Meter: Simple quatrains with alternating rhyme and iambic meter create a hymnal quality, aligning with 19th-century religious poetry conventions, though less metrically adventurous than contemporaries like Christina Rossetti.
- Contrast with Author’s Other Works: While Mary Botham Howitt wrote progressive social verse and children’s literature advocating empathy and reform, this piece reflects her later, more conventional religious phase, favoring orthodoxy over the humanitarian focus of her earlier writing.
- Treatment of Winter: Rather than portraying winter as bleak or isolating, the poem frames it as equally sacred, reinforcing divine ownership in barrenness as in abundance, a less-discussed theological consistency across seasons.
- Archaic Diction and Theological Clarity: Phrasing like “yon myriad worlds” and “Thou that createdst all” lends ceremonial gravity, distancing the speaker from intimacy and reinforcing transcendence, typical of early Victorian piety.
- Place Within Author’s Oeuvre: Though not central to her better-known social or moral writings, this poem exemplifies her sustained religious engagement, distinguishing it within her later, less-studied devotional output.
- Relation to Era’s Norms: It aligns with mid-19th-century evangelical trends that emphasized gratitude and divine provision, differing from emerging doubts of the period seen in Tennyson or Arnold, instead offering unqualified affirmation.
- Contemporary Relevance: Post-1900 readers may view its unwavering praise with skepticism, yet its insistence on finding continuity of value in environmental extremes prefigures modern ecological theologies that attribute sanctity to all natural states.
- Thematic Consistency: The refrain “The earth is Thine” structures the poem like a litany, reinforcing ownership and stewardship, a theological answer to material concerns about labor and harvest amid climatic hardship.
- Gender and Voice: Rare among Victorian women poets who often coded spiritual dissent through domestic imagery, Howitt here adopts a public, authoritative devotional voice, uncommon in female-authored religious verse of the time.
Mary Howitt
(1799 – 1888)
Mary Howitt
(12 March 1799 – 30 January 1888) was an English writer, editor, translator and a pioneer of the women’s rights movement in the UK. She is most known as the author of the famous poem The Spider and the Fly. She translated several works by Hans Christian Andersen and Frederika Bremer. Some of her works were written in conjunction with her husband, William Howitt. Many, in verse and prose, were intended for young people.
