All Creatures of Our God and King

"All Creatures of Our God and King" is a hymn based on the "Canticle of the Sun" ("Cantico di Frate Sole"), written by Saint Francis of Assisi around 1225, making it one of the oldest hymn texts still regularly sung in Christian worship. Francis composed it near the end of his life while he was nearly blind, seriously ill, and enduring great physical suffering — yet the canticle is a radiant outpouring of praise, calling on the sun, moon, wind, water, fire, and even death to praise their Creator. The English paraphrase was written by William Henry Draper around 1919, originally for a children's festival in Leeds, England. The tune, "Lasst Uns Erfreuen," is a seventeenth-century German melody from a Cologne hymnal of 1623, later harmonized by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1906. Jonathan Baird and Ryan Baird (of the Sovereign Grace family) have created a modern arrangement that has introduced the ancient hymn to a new generation. The hymn's vision of all creation joining in a cosmic chorus of praise reflects both Francis's deep love for the natural world and the biblical vision of Romans 8 and Revelation 5, where every creature in heaven and on earth worships the Lamb.