This beautiful hymn came into my mind early this first of December morning,
while I stood out on my back porch braving the frosty north wind to gaze up
in prayerful adoration at the radiant star patterns and planets
glittering silently across the clear pre-dawn skies.
The glory of God revealed in the celestial perfection of the heavens
never ceases to amaze me, nor does the knowledge that He knows
and calls each one of His stars and planets by name.
It came upon a midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold;
"Peace on the earth, good will to men,
From Heaven's all gracious King."
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.
Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hovering wings
And over its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.
Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears now
The Love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing.
And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!
For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet-bards foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.
"It Came Upon A Midnight Clear"
(1849)
Edmund Hamilton Sears
(1810-1876)
Massachusetts born-clergyman
and hymn writer
This hymn was first performed at a Christmas service
in the same year it was written.
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