"O Little Town of Bethlehem "

O tidings of comfort and joy!
For Jesus Christ, our Saviour,
Was born in Christmas Day.

197

Unknown

"O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM”

O LITTLE town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

The silent stars go by;

Yet in thy dark streets shineth

The everlasting Light;

The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night.

For Christ is born of Mary,

And, gathered all above,

While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love.
O morning stars, together

Proclaim the holy birth!

And praises sing to God the King,
And peace to men on earth.

How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,

Where meek souls will receive Him still,
The dear Christ enters in.

O holy Child of Bethlehem!

Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in,
Be born in us to-day.

We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
Oh come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893]

A CHRISTMAS HYMN

Old Style: 1837

It was the calm and silent night!

Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might,

And now was Queen of land and sea.
No sound was heard of clashing wars;
Peace brooded o'er the hushed domain;
Apollo, Pallas, Jove and Mars,

Held undisturbed their ancient reign,
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago.

'Twas in the calm and silent night!
The senator of haughty Rome
Impatient urged his chariot's flight,
From lordly revel rolling home.
Triumphal arches gleaming swell

His breast with thoughts of boundless sway;

What recked the Roman what befell

A paltry province far away,
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago!

Within that province far away

Went plodding home a weary boor:

A streak of light before him lay,

Fall'n through a half-shut stable door Across his path. He passed-for naught Told what was going on within;

How keen the stars! his only thought;

The air how calm and cold and thin,
In the solemn midnight

Centuries ago!

"Shepherds Watched Their Flocks" 199

O strange indifference!-low and high
Drowsed over common joys and cares:
The earth was still-but knew not why;
The world was listening-unawares.
How calm a moment may precede

One that shall thrill the world for ever!
To that still moment none would heed,
Man's doom was linked, no more to sever,
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago.

It is the calm and solemn night!

A thousand bells ring out, and throw
Their joyous peals abroad, and smite

The darkness, charmed and holy now.
The night that erst no name had worn,

To it a happy name is given;

For in that stable lay new-born

The peaceful Prince of Earth and Heaven,
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago.

Alfred Domett [1811-1887]

"WHILE SHEPHERDS WATCHED THEIR FLOCKS

BY NIGHT"

WHILE shepherds watched their flocks by night,

All seated on the ground,

The angel of the Lord came down,

And glory shone around.

"Fear not," said he, for mighty dread

Had seized their troubled mind; "Glad tidings of great joy I bring To you and all mankind.

"To you, in David's town, this day
Is born, of David's line,

The Saviour, who is Christ the Lord,

And this shall be the sign:

"The heavenly babe you there shall find
To human view displayed,

All meanly wrapped in swaddling bands,
And in a manger laid."

Thus spake the seraph; and forthwith
Appeared a shining throng
Of angels, praising God, who thus
Addressed their joyful song:

"All glory be to God on high, And to the earth be peace;

Good will henceforth from Heaven to men

Begin and never cease."

Nahum Tate [1652-1715]

CHRISTMAS CAROLS

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 o'er its Babel-sounds The blessed angels sing.

But with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;

The Angels

And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;—
Oh, 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;-
Oh, 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 give back the song

Which now the angels sing.

201

Edmund Hamilton Sears [1810-1876]

THE ANGELS

From "Flowers of Sion"

RUN, shepherds, run where Bethlehem blest appears.
We bring the best of news; be not dismayed:

A Saviour there is born more old than years,

Amidst heaven's rolling heights this earth who stayed. In a poor cottage inned, a virgin maid,

A weakling did him bear, who all upbears;

There is he poorly swaddled, in manger laid,

To whom too narrow swaddlings are our spheres:
Run, shepherds, run, and solemnize his birth.
This is that night—no, day, grown great with bliss,
In which the power of Satan broken is:
In heaven be glory, peace unto the earth!