We plough the fields and scatter

We plough the fields and scatter. Matthias Claudius* (1740-1815), translated by Jane Montgomery Campbell* (1817-1878). Claudius’s hymn, ‘Wir pflügen, und wir streuen’*, which began ‘Im Anfang war’s auf Erden’ (‘In the beginning on earth, there was…’) appeared in the Wandsbecker Bote of 1782. Campbell translated stanzas 3, 5, 7, 9, 10 and 12, published in Charles Sandford Bere’s A Garland of Songs; or, an English Liederkranz (1861, Second Edition, 1863). It was included in the Appendix (1868) to the First Edition of A&M, in three 8-line verses with a refrain (‘All good gifts around us’), and has subsequently become known throughout the English-speaking world as a robust and cheerful...