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The song is included on Johnny Cash’s 5-CD box set Cash Unearthed, released posthumously in November, 2003, and featured on disc 4, My Mother’s Hymn Book. This collection of gospel songs was released as a stand-alone disc six months later.

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans recorded the song with vocal quartet and orchestra on March 3, 1950. Tennessee Ernie Ford performed the song on his 1956 platinum album Hymns. A June 18, 1958 recording by Perry Como was part of his album When You Come to the End of the Day. Rosemary Clooney included it on her 1959 MGM Records album Hymns from the Heart. It is also used in juxtaposition to “Blue Tail Fly” near the beginning of the Merchant Ivory film The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. The book of poetry Tea by D. A. Powell also refers to the song. Doris Day recorded the song on her 1962 album You’ll Never Walk Alone. Elvis Presley recorded the song on his gospel album How Great Thou Art (1967). Willie Nelson recorded the song on his 1976 gospel album The Troublemaker.”In the Garden” (sometimes rendered by its first line “I Come to the Garden Alone” is a gospel song written by American songwriter C. Austin Miles (1868–1946), a former pharmacist who served as editor and manager at Hall-Mack publishers for 37 years. According to Miles’ great-granddaughter, the song was written “in a cold, dreary and leaky basement in Pitman, New Jersey that didn’t even have a window in it let alone a view of a garden.” The song was first published in 1912 and popularized during the Billy Sunday evangelistic campaigns of the early twentieth century by two members of his staff, Homer Rodeheaver and Virginia Asher.

The Statler Brothers’ 1981 version reached #35 on the US Country chart. Glen Campbell recorded the song on his 1989 gospel album Favorite Hymns. The gospel song is sung throughout Wild River (1960). It’s also sung in the closing scene of the film Places in the Heart (1984) and by Ronee Blakley in the Robert Altman film Nashville (1975). Brad Paisley recorded a cover of the song on his debut album Who Needs Pictures (1999). Garrison Keillor & Meryl Streep recorded a version on the 2006 CD A Prairie Home Companion: Duets. The song also appears on John Prine and Mac Wiseman’s 2007 Standard Songs for Average People.The history of music is as old as humanity itself. Archaeologists have found primitive flutes made of bone and ivory dating back as far as 43,000 years, and it’s likely that many ancient musical styles have been preserved in oral traditions. When it comes to specific songs, however, the oldest known examples are relatively more recent. The earliest fragment of musical notation is found on a 4,000-year-old Sumerian clay tablet, which includes instructions and tunings for a hymn honoring the ruler Lipit-Ishtar. But for the title of oldest extant song, most historians point to “Hurrian Hymn No. 6,” an ode to the goddess Nikkal that was composed in cuneiform by the ancient Hurrians sometime around the 14th century B.C. The clay tablets containing the tune were excavated in the 1950s from the ruins of the city of Ugarit in Syria. Along with a near-complete set of musical notations, they also include specific instructions for how to play the song on a type of nine-stringed lyre.“Hurrian Hymn No. 6” is considered the world’s earliest melody, but the oldest musical composition to have survived in its entirety is a first century A.D. Greek tune known as the “Seikilos Epitaph.” The song was found engraved on an ancient marble column used to mark a woman’s gravesite in Turkey. “I am a tombstone, an image,” reads an inscription. “Seikilos placed me here as an everlasting sign of deathless remembrance.” The column also includes musical notation as well as a short set of lyrics that read: “While you live, shine / Have no grief at all / Life exists only for a short while / And time demands its toll.”

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Quick Navigation Spirit Of Praise UPPERROOM Michael W Smith Dante Bowe Hillsong Worship Lecrae Chandler Moore Hillsong UNITED Casting Crowns Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir Gaither Music Bizzle Nathaniel Bassey Tasha Cobbs Leonard Don Moen Frank Edwards Bethel Music Chris Tomlin Kirk Franklin Joel Osteen Maverick City Music Planetshakers Tye Tribbett Joyous Celebration Sinach Cece Winans Travis Greene Steven Furtick Pentatonix Christian Hymn WorshipMob Elevation Worship Andy Mineo TY Bello PassionHere’s a beautiful Hymn by the well-known prolific hymn writer, as this Hymn has been a blessing to lots of lives since it was brought to the world. The hymn song was performed by Lifeway Worship.

Holly Z, I was thinking of writing a comment like that. I guess that is the beauty of a song like this that can be many things to many people. I just watched Reba and The Isaacs sing it, which led to finding this blog. I had pretty much only heard this at funerals esp at my (to be) father in laws. So I also assumed it was about heaven. Then the day after my mothers funeral I was walking on a country road and thought of it and played. I realized as I was looking at all the amazing things in nature around me it was like God was walking with me and comforting me after the loss of my mom. And now reading the authors connection to John Chaper 20, I totally see how Jesus was comforting Mary and sending her out to tell others.Interesting! I never ever thought this to be a farewell song and especially not a funeral song. To me it is more of a reminder on how important it is to always come back to Jesus and to have a real relationship with him, to spend time with him and to then be sent out into the world to tell others about Jesus.To me the garden represents heaven, and in the first verse, when we sing, “I come to the Garden alone,” we are coming to see God. We have fought the good fight, we have finished the race, we have kept the faith. It is time for rest, it is time for God to tell us we are His own.But “In the Garden” the hymn is a not a happy song. The music sounds like a sad slow waltz and the words have a wistful elegiac quality to them. Here’s the final verse: “I’d stay in the garden with him, though the night around me be falling, but he bids me go, through the voice of woe, His voice to me is calling.” These regretful lyrics signal the end of something, not the beginning of a movement that would transform the world.I read this song totally different. To me, I come to spend some intimate time, one on one time, with Jesus, in the morning, while the dew is still on the roses. We walk and talk in this beautiful place together. We sit and laugh or cry, just he and I. The birds know the voice of their Creator, so sweet, so loving. So they quiet theirs and listen to his. Spending this intimate time with him gives me joy and a song in my heart to take with me. Still remaining with my Savior, LORD, and Friend, the night is approaching and so is the time to get back to my worldly responsibilities. He tells me to go, but through a voice of woe because he so loves me and our intimate time together that he doesn’t want it to end. But, his voice is calling me onward, back to this world where I am his hands and feet and mouthpiece. He needs me to bring as many with me to him as I can. I need to fulfill the destiny he gave me. BUT, he is always with me, by my side, talking to me and walking with me…….until I return to the garden again. To me, this song is about my intimate, very personal time with the LORD while I am on this side of Heaven and am walking with him.

We also sang this at my Aunt Lee’s funeral and later at my Uncle Wayne’s. As many of you know, my father died over the Christmas vacation. Before he went into the hospital he handed over a set of funeral instructions that, unbeknownst to us, he had been preparing over the course of several years. And sure enough, he asked that we sing “In the Garden” at his funeral. And we did.Nonetheless, I’ve enjoyed and benefitted from your explanation, and I admire and appreciate you enumerating the occasion your family has used this hymn for funerals. Like your father, I’m composing notes for my funeral service, whenever that will be. And, I’m taking a note (pun intended?) from your writing and leaving “In the Garden” off the list, as I would not want to burden my daughter with further sadness.

The meaning to me is ones time alone with the Lord early in the morning. “While the dew is still on the roses” He talks to me and because He is with me He walks with me. It gives me joy to have this time with Him daily.We sang this song many times as I grew up in the church, My father was almost always sitting with the deacons but on occasions when he sat with us and we sang this song, he would squeeze my hand as we both sang it with real gusto. I’m much older now and most of our family has passed. I’ve changed denominations and viewpoints, studied at a theological seminary and been a senior editor for a denomination. However, I’ve never thought of this hymn as a. being woeful; or b. being an expression of selfishness. My father was a businessman who, in his later years, loved and taught me to love and practice gardening. So, the song has many joyful touchpoints for me.

“In the Garden” seems like a farewell song, mixing optimism and sadness simultaneously. The hymn was written to comfort and I do find it comforting that someday we’ll be welcomed into paradise and have a personal conversation with God in the heavenly garden. I imagine a conversation where we tell Him our story, our concerns, and where we fell short. He’ll already know all this, of course, but He’ll listen like an attentive father.It’s based on John 20:1-18. You totally misinterprete
d it. What’s wrong w/ acknowledging what God does for us? To ignore that is insulting God, not being thankful. It’s about meeting w/ our risen Savior. We meet Him one-to-one. Nothing wrong w/ that. How do you connect this w/ something about being rich??

Fortunately Austin Miles, who wrote “In the Garden,” was no cynic. A pharmacist yes, but a cynic no. Miles later claimed that a vision inspired him to write this song as he sat at his desk with his Bible open to John Chapter 20. In this vision he witnessed the weeping Magdalene being comforted by the resurrected Savior. As soon as he awoke he wrote the lyrics fast — as quickly as they could be put down on paper, and exactly as they appear in the hymnal. Later that night he wrote the music.Sometimes I wonder if Alan Miles was fully aware of the song he’d written. He would not be the first creator to misinterpret his own creation. Because when I read John 20, I get a sense of happiness and joy. This is the moment when Christianity begins.

It sounded familiar, after hearing the Gracias choir with the super soprano sung. Fond out it is also called “In the Garden”. Felt resonant thus time inside. One day we all hope that we will be walking with Him in the garden and what a joy will be when He called “I am His own”! It will be a nice hymn for the funeral.The reason “In the Garden” is meaningful to me is because it’s traditionally sung at our family’s funerals. I first became aware how powerful it could be after my grandmother died. My mother had arranged for a soloist to sing it from the balcony at the rear of the church and when she sang the chorus “and He walked with me and He talked with me and He told me I am his own” my cousins and their kids began — one by one — to weep.This interpretation is very different from the one Austin Miles intended, but over the years it’s how I’ve come to relate to the hymn. In a way, it’s emblematic of how a hymn operates – making its meaning known after a lifetime of listening and singing. But regardless of what Austin Miles intended, I’m grateful for hymn because it’s brought me comfort and hope at some of the saddest times of my life.I see that the error was caught in 2019 but still not fixed: Second reference to Austin Miles says Alan. No matter, wonderful Christian hymn and so comforting to many. So many singers have sung this, from Tennessee Ernie Ford to Elvis to Johnny Cash. I never thought of it being limited to funerals, but of course that is a wonderful opportunity for comfort. Thank you for the very thoughtful comment. I’ve only heard this sung at funerals, never during a regular church service, so I guess that’s why I think of it as woeful. If you want to save this hymn for your daughter as a joyful and uplifting piece, I would definitely not put it on your funeral list because once you’ve heard it at a funeral it’s hard to go back. ‘I come to the garden alone’ would go onto be published in 210 hymnals and recorded by many stars, including Doris Day, Mahalia Jackson and Elvis Presley.

It was though I was in a trance, as I read it that day, I seemed to be part of the scene. I became a silent witness to that dramatic moment in Mary’s life when she knelt before her Lord and cried, “Rabboni”. I rested my hands on the open Bible, as I stared at the light blue wall. As the light faded, I seemed to be standing at the entrance of a garden, looking down a gently winding path, shaded by olive branches. A woman in white, with head, bowed, hand clasping her throat, as if to choke back her sobs, walked slowly into the shadows. It was Mary. As she came unto the tomb, upon which she placed her hand, she bent over to look in and ran away.

I awakened in sunlight, gripping my Bible with my muscles tense, and nerves vibrating, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I wrote as quickly as the words could be formed the lyrics exactly as it is sung today. That same evening, I wrote the tune. It is sung today as it was written in 1912.”Here is the account of how this beautiful hymn was written from the hymn writer, C. Austin Miles, himself, “One day in April 1912, I was seated in the dark room where I kept my photographic equipment, and also my organ. I drew my Bible toward me and it opened at my favorite book and chapter, John chapter twenty. I don’t know if this was by chance or by the work of the Holy Spirit. I will let you the reader decide. That story of Jesus and Mary in John 20 had lost none of its power and charm.

Because this hymn narrates and expands on part of the Resurrection account, it is best suited for Easter morning, whether in a simple handbell setting like “In the Garden” as a quiet prelude, or an organ setting for an offertory (as in “With Everlasting Alleluias”, or a choral anthem based on “In the Garden” before the sermon. Unlike many Easter hymns, which overflow with proclamations of victory well suited to brass and full organ, this hymn provides a relatively quiet reflection best suited to simple piano or light instruments.They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Miles’s hymn has been criticized for being overly sentimental and even erotic. When put in the context of the Scripture that inspired it, one can see that Miles wrote the song from Mary’s point of view. In it, she expresses the great joy she must have felt on suddenly hearing and seeing her beloved Savior after witnessing His death and burial (Mark 15:40, 47). However, the long and loving communion to which the refrain alludes is not recorded or implied in the biblical account (John 20:14-18), which rather indicates that their conversation was quite short – as soon as Mary recognizes Jesus, He tells her to go. Perhaps Miles means that that moment was so overflowing with the sudden change of emotions from grief to joy that time seemed to stand still. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

​In the Garden (sometimes rendered by its first line “I Come to the Garden Alone” is a gospel ​hymn written by American songwriter C. Austin Miles (1868–1946), a former pharmacist who served as editor and manager at Hall-Mack publishers for 37 years. According to Miles’ great-granddaughter, the song was written “in a cold, dreary and leaky basement in Pitman, New Jersey that didn’t even have a window in it let alone a view of a garden.” The song was first published in 1912 and popularized during the Billy Sunday evangelistic campaigns of the early twentieth century by two members of his staff, Homer Rodeheaver and Virginia Asher.”The Garden” is basically a poem about someone who thinks that hanging out in nature is the coolest thing a person could do, and being able to hang in nature by yourself is the whipped cream and cherry on top of that already delicious garden sundae. But the poem doesn’t start out that way. In fact, the poem opens far, far, away from Marvell’s garden world with a condemnation of society. It criticizes men who work their butts off to gain public recognition because really, they’re losing out—all that time in the office means they aren’t spending time in the great outdoors and, according to Marvell, they’re got their priorities all mixed up.

Marvell then takes things up a notch and starts talking about spiritual things like the mind and the soul. It’s complicated language, but the speaker is basically saying that being in the garden allows the mind to be at its best and the soul to be its most content. And what would be extremely awesome for the mind and soul would be the opportunity to enjoy the garden alone; in Biblical terms, Adam would have been better off if Eve never existed (the jury is still out on what Marvell’s wife thought about this last bit). The poem concludes with some images of God as a gardener-clockmaker and compares the flowers in the garden to a super-huge sundial by which humankind can measure their lives.Stanza 5 marks a shift in the speaker’s argument from nature vs. society into pure praise for the awesomeness of nature, epitomized by the idea of “the garden.” Wherever this garden is, the speaker is clearly pumped up about the idea of spending lots of time there. There’s lots of delicious fruit, so many melons that you can’t even find room to walk, and nice cushy grass to fall on in case you get too drunk on all the wine that “luscious clusters” of grapes are dripping into your mouth. Next the speaker talks about how he used to look for “quiet” and “innocence” in society but has discovered that even the best that mankind has to offer isn’t as awesome as the solitude of nature, a point which is capped off by a cute little anecdote that explains why trees are better than girlfriends. And just in case anyone remains unconvinced, the speaker calls in some Greek mythology for backup—even classical gods like Apollo and Pan, he says, liked plants better than people. Since their evolution away from Christian usage, some dirges have intentionally been written to be set to music, while others have been set or reset at later dates. Among the latter cases is the “Dirge for Fidele”, a portion of William Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline that was later set to music by multiple composers.Among the most consistent devotions within these primers was the Office of the Dead, a popular arrangement of the canonical hours as prayers for the dead. This office was itself typically divided into two hours for recitation at different times of day: Dirige (equivalent to Matins and Lauds) in the morning and Placebo (equivalent to Vespers or Evensong) in the evening. Both terms were derived from among first words always said when reciting those hours, with Dirige starting an antiphon derived from Psalm 5. Gradually, Dirige and eventually “dirge” came to refer to not only to the morning hour, but to the Office of the Dead as a whole and its pairing with the Psalms of Commendation (Psalms 119 and 139). This practice was codified in the 1559 standardized primer issued under Elizabeth I, wherein both hours appeared under the collective name Dirige.

A dirge (Latin: dirige, naenia) is a somber song or lament expressing mourning or grief, such as would be appropriate for performance at a funeral. Often taking the form of a brief hymn, dirges are typically shorter and less meditative than elegies. Dirges are often slow and bear the character of funeral marches. Poetic dirges may be dedicated to a specific individual or otherwise thematically refer to death.

In the late Medieval period, it was common for Western Christian laity–both men and women–to attend the celebration of the Divine Office (canonical hours) according to various editions of the breviary alongside members of monastic communities. However, the complexity of these breviaries proved prohibitive for a layperson to adopt in private use, so certain devotions that were invariable or only varied slightly day-to-day were adapted into primers.

Prior to the English Reformation, translated sections from the Dirige were among the most circulated vernacular portions of the Bible available in England as recitation by laity of these prayers was common at funerals and gravesites. Formal liturgical saying of the Dirige–then legally required to be in Latin–persisted through the first half of the 16th century, with occasional requirements that certain proportions of a parish church’s congregation be present for such events.

The word “dirge” gradually came to be associated with the variety of funeral hymns it describes today. Among the earliest was a pre-Reformation funeral lament from the Cleveland area of north-east Yorkshire, England, known as the Lyke-Wake Dirge. The contents are neither scriptural nor liturgical, but rather speak to the means of salvation through Christ via alms-giving. A simultaneous development was a funerary “tariff” wherein those present at the recitation of the canonical Dirige would be paid a small amount from the estate of the deceased. It is associated with the still-practiced Lyke Wake Walk, a 40-mile challenge walk across the moorlands of north-east Yorkshire, as the members’ anthem of the Lyke Wake Club, a society whose members are those who have completed the walk within 24 hours. This dirge saw a resurgence in popularity in the 1960s following performances by English folk bands such The Young Tradition and Pentangle.

While private devotionals were proliferated under the Reform-minded Elizabeth, the number of permitted public liturgical devotions were targeted for curtailment. The Dirige was retained within the Elizabethan primer over Protestant objections to prayers for the dead and there remained resistance to the public liturgical performance of the devotion. In 1560 and 1561, episcopal visitors of the Church of England observed with disapproval the continued practice of clerks singing psalms in “dirge-like” fashion.Here’s a beautiful Hymn by the well-known prolific hymn writer, as this Hymn has been a blessing to lots of lives since it was brought to the world. The hymn song was performed by a global minister of God.

For most of his life, Caedmon, a Celtic herdsman who lived around 687 A.D., had no musical talent. As the story goes, he was once visiting a nearby monastery listening to the monks singing and playing music. When the harp was passed to him, he became embarrassed and left. That night, he was visited by a heavenly being who instructed him to sing of the First Creation. The hymn he sang praises God for His creation of the heavens and the earth. An English monk by the name of Bede translated Caedmon’s hymn and wrote about it in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Caedmon is considered to be the first English poet.

Michel has taught college composition and literature for over16 years. He has a BA from DePauw University and a Master’s degree from Texas A&M International University. He has worked as an educator, speechywriter, ghostwriter, and freelancer.Very little of Caedmon’s life was recorded. According to Bede’s account, Caedmon was an illiterate worker at the Abbey of Whitby. He avoided singing for much of his life. He believed he had nothing to add compared to monks who spent more of their time singing and was discouraged when asked to sing at a feast. “Caedmon’s Hymn” is a short poem written by an uneducated herdsman named Caedmon around 731 CE. Originally written in Old English, the hymn was supposedly sung by Caedmon, who at the time worked from a monastery and refused to sing. The story of the poem and how it came to be was written in the Ecclesiastical History of the English people, a book by an 8th-century monk named Bede. Now, whether it was God, Himself, who spoke to Caedmon or an angel, the story does not say, but we can assume that Caedmon had a pure heart. He just hadn’t previously had a voice to sing. According to the story, Caedmon began to sing this very song right away:Debbie Notari received her Bachelor’s degree in English and M.S. in Education Literacy and Learning for Grades 6-12. Debbie has over 28 years of teaching experience, teaching a variety of grades for courses like English, Reading, Music, and more.

Bede tells us that Caedmon ‘fittingly was accustomed to make songs.’ In other words, he was a talented musician. His songs were spiritual in nature and encouraged those who heard them to live holy lives. Bede makes it clear, too, that Caedmon’s musical talent was a miraculous gift from God. Caedmon wasn’t always so musically inclined.

This portion of Caedmon’s hymn is all that we have of his writings. The theme in the hymn, or song of praise, is that God created the heavens and the earth for the enjoyment of men. Caedmon praises God for His creation. Using repetition, he points out twice that God, unlike man, is eternal. In a fairly pagan Celtic atmosphere, we see some of the earliest influences of Christianity.As a member, you’ll also get unlimited access to over 88,000 lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you succeed.

The main ideas in “Caedmon’s Hymn” are based on the poem’s purpose: praise to God. By beginning the hymn with four lines dedicated to God, Caedmon ensures the audience knows the purpose of the work. When reading Caedmon’s hymn, an analysis should address why so much of the short poem is dedicated to a simple introduction, but the reason becomes obvious when combined with the rest of the poem.”Caedmon’s Hymn” is significant because it is one of the oldest surviving English poems in existence. It is also the foundation of the story about the miracle of Caedmon, his gift from God in the form of song.

The term “middle-earth” might seem strange, but it must be remembered that early English was an amalgamation of various Germanic languages. “Middle-earth” refers to Midgard, a traditional term for the world, the middle realm, more commonly associated today with Norse mythology. This combination of cosmologies is not so strange since early Christians drew from various faiths. Beowulf, for example, likewise combines old European tales with Christianity to create a mixed-faith story that draws from several religions. The hymn, then, appeals not just to the new Christians, but to those who follow older faiths.”Caedmon’s Hymn” is a short poem designed to be sung. It is technically a hymn, a type of religious song. Caedmon was supposedly an uneducated herdsman. When asked to sing at a feast he was discouraged and left because he had never sung before. God, or perhaps an angel, later visited him in a dream. When he awoke, Caedmon was blessed with the words to a poem praising God and His creation. The hymn explained that God created the heavens and Earth for men to enjoy. It also emphasizes that humanity has a responsibility to maintain the earth for the enjoyment of future generations. “Caedmon’s Hymn” is Caedmon’s only known surviving work.

‘In this abbess’s monastery was a certain brother particularly glorified and honoured with a divine gift, in that he fittingly was accustomed to make songs, which pertained to religion and virtue, so that whatever thus he learned of divine letters from scholars, those things he after a moderate space of time he brought forth, in poetic language adorned with the greatest sweetness and inspiration and well-made in the English language. And by his poem-songs the spirits of many men were kindled to distain of the world and to service of a heavenly life.’

Caedmon was elderly, and for a long while he didn’t have any musical or poetic talent. As the story goes, the monks would pass around a harp and people would take turns singing. Caedmon was embarrassed, so he left early. When he got home, he went out to the barn and fell asleep. He then dreamed that a man appeared and said, ‘Caedmon, sing me something.’ Caedmon replied: ‘I do not know how to sing and for that reason I went out from this feast and went hither, because I did not know how to sing at all.’ The man replied: ‘Nevertheless, you must sing.’ When Caedmon asked what he must sing, the man said: ‘Sing to me of the first Creation.’

The introductory lines are not just about praise to God, but praise for what He created. This emphasis is crucial. The second half of the poem begins by describing heaven as a roof over the world for “men’s sons.” This line has two connotations. Firstly, it creates the sense that God is worried about humanity, as a roof is designed to protect from something. It also makes the heavens an eternal symbol of God’s love. Secondly, it reinforces the idea that God cares for not just the humans He would create shortly thereafter, but also their descendants.Caedmon was a Celtic herdsman who lived around 687 A.D.. He used to listen to teachings in the Streonæshalch monastery, and then he would go home and write music to what he heard. But for most of his life, he had no musical talent.