Hymns

It Came upon the Midnight Clear

Words: Edmund H. Sears · Music: Richard Storrs Willis · 1849

Verse 1
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 heav'n's all-gracious King!"
The world in solemn stillness lay
to hear the angels sing.

Verse 2
Still through the cloven skies they come,
with peaceful wings unfurled,
and still their heav'nly music floats
o'er all the weary world:
above its sad and lowly pains
they bend on hov'ring wing,
and ever o'er its Babel sounds
the blessed angels sing.

Verse 3
Yet with the woes of sin and strife
the world has suffered long;
beneath the heav'nly strain have rolled
two thousand years of wrong;
and man, at war with man, hears not
the tidings which they bring;
oh, hush the noise, ye men of strife,
and hear the angels sing.

Verse 4
O 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:
oh, rest beside the weary road
and hear the angels sing!

Verse 5
For lo! the days are hast'ning 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 give back the song
which now the angels sing.

Words: Edmund H. Sears, 1849 | Music: Richard Storrs Willis, 1850, rev. 1861

Genesis 11; Isaiah 2; Isaiah 9; Isaiah 40; Habakkuk 2; Matthew 5; Luke 2; Romans 8; Hebrews 1; James 4

Christmas · Jesus, Birth of