Music & HymnsIt Came Upon The Midnight Clear

"There were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified." Luke 2:8-9

Words: Edmund Hamilton Sears, 1849; first appeared in the Christian Register, 1850. Sears is said to have written these words at the request of his friend, W. P. Lunt, a minister in Quincy, Massachusetts; the hymn was first sung at the 1849 Sunday School Christmas celebration.

Music: "Carol," Richard Storrs Willis, 1850

"Noel," traditional air; arranged by Arthur Seymour Sullivan, 1871

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 blessèd 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 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 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.

Hymns supplied through the gracious generosity of the Cyber Hymnal Website