It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

It came upon the 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 wing,

And ever over its Babel sounds

The blessed angels sing.

Gloria in Excelsis

Evelyn De Morgan

(1893)

Yet with the woes of sin and strife

The world has suffered long;

Beneath the angel strain have rolled

Two thousand years of wrong;

At man, at war with man, hears not

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

Come 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)

Words by Edmund Hamilton Sears

(1810-1876)

American Hymnist

 Mr. Sears wrote the words of this song at the request of his friend,

William Parsons Lunt, a minister from Quincy Massachusetts.

This beautiful  hymn was said to have been first sung

 at a Sunday School Christmas celebration in 1849.