O Life That Makest All Things New

O Life that makest all things new,
The blooming earth, the thoughts of men,
Our pilgrim feet, wet with Thy dew,
In gladness hither turn again.

From hand to hand the greeting flows,
From eye to eye the signals run,
From heart to heart the bright hope glows,
The seekers of the Light are one.

One in the freedom of the truth,
One in the joys of paths untrod,
One in the soul’s perennial youth,
One in the larger thought of God.

The freer step, the fuller breath,
The wide horizon’s grander view,
The sense of life that knows no death,
The Life that maketh all things new!

Author: Samuel Longfellow

Year: 1874

This hymn by the American Unitarian minister and hymn-writer Samuel Longfellow (brother of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) first appeared in his 1874 collection 'Hymns and Verses' (sometimes dated 1875 in later publications). The text is a classic expression of 19th-century liberal Protestant optimism and is still found in many hymnals.