We Scatter Seeds

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We scatter seeds with careless hand

Author: John Keble
Tune: WE SCATTER SEEDS
Published in 7 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, Noteworthy Composer
Audio files: MIDI

Representative Text

1 We scatter seeds with careless hand,
And dream we ne’er shall see them more;
But for a thousand years
Their fruit appears,
In weeds that mar the land,
Or healthful store.

2 The deeds we do, the words we say,
Into still air they seem to fleet;
We count them ever past;
But they shall last—
In the dread judgment day,
And we shall meet.

3 I charge thee by the years gone by,
For the love’s sake of brethren dear,
Keep, then, the one true way
In work or play,
Lest in that world their cry
Of woe thou hear.

Source: The Cyber Hymnal #11943

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Author: John Keble

Keble, John, M.A., was born at Fairford, in Gloucestershire, on St. Mark's Day, 1792. His father was Vicar of Coln St. Aldwin's, about three miles distant, but lived at Fairford in a house of his own, where he educated entirely his two sons, John and Thomas, up to the time of their entrance at Oxford. In 1806 John Keble won a Scholarship at Corpus Christi College, and in 1810 a Double First Class, a distinction which up to that time had been gained by no one except Sir Robert Peel. In 1811 he was elected a Fellow of Oriel, a very great honour, especially for a boy under 19 years of age; and in 1811 he won the University Prizes both for the English and Latin Essays. It is somewhat remarkable that amid this brilliantly successful career,… Go to person page >

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Text Information

Text Information

First Line:	We scatter seeds with careless hand
Title:	We Scatter Seeds
Author:	John Keble
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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Notes

We scatter seeds with careless hand. J. Keble. [Power of Little Things.] This, in Hymns for Use in the Chapel of Marlborough College, 1899, is composed of st. iii., iv. of "Five loving souls, each one as mine," in Keble's Lyra Innocentium, 1846, p. 102.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, New Supplement (1907)

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