Lucy Evelina Akerman

Lucy Evelina Akerman, née Metcalf, was an American Unitarian writer born in Wrentham, Massachusetts, on February 21, 1816. The daughter of Thomas Metcalf, she eventually married Charles Akerman of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and made her home in Providence, Rhode Island, where she resided until her death on February 21, 1874.

She gained lasting recognition as a hymnwriter through her poem "Nothing but leaves, the Spirit grieves," which was inspired by a sermon preached by M. D. Conway. First published in the New York Christian Observer around 1858, the hymn crossed the Atlantic when it appeared anonymously in the Scottish Family Treasury in 1859. In the United States, it found particular favor among Baptist congregations. The piece achieved widespread popularity throughout Great Britain after Ira D. Sankey included it as No. 34 in his Sacred Songs and Solos and featured it prominently in Dwight L. Moody's evangelistic campaigns, sung to a tune composed by Silas J. Vail.