1 There’s not a bird with lonely nest,
In pathless wood or mountain crest,
Nor meaner thing, which does not share,
O God, in Thy paternal care.
2 Each barren crag, each desert rude,
Holds Thee within its solitude;
And Thou dost bless the wanderer there,
Who makes his solitary prayer.
3 In busy mart and crowded street,
No less than in the still retreat,
Thou, Lord, art near, our souls to bless
With all a parent’s tenderness!
4 And every moment still doth bring
Thy blessings on its loaded wing;
Widely they spread through earth and sky,
And last through all eternity!
Amen.
Source: Book of Worship with Hymns and Tunes #487
First Line: | There's not a bird with lonely nest |
Title: | There's Not a Bird with Lonely Nest |
Author: | Baptist W. Noel |
Language: | English |
Copyright: | Public Domain |
There's not a bird with lonely nest. W. B. Noel. [God the Divine Father of All.] This hymn was given anonymously in common with the rest of the hymns, in W. B. Noel’s Selection of Psalms and Hymns 1832 (ed. 1853, No. 561), in 7 stanzas of 4 lines. It is commonly attributed to W. B. Noel, and we see no reason to doubt the authorship. It is in several collections, but usually in an abbreviated form. In Bickersteth's Christian Psalmody, 1833, No. 37, it is given in its full form. In R. Bingham's Hymnologia Christiana Latina, 1871, stanzas i., iii.-v., are rendered into Latin as, "Non avis est, nidum quae sola ponit eremo."
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)