| |
| IT came upon the midnight clear, | |
| That glorious song of old, | |
| From angels bending near the earth | |
| To touch their harps of gold: | |
| “Peace to the earth, good-will to men | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| And still their heavenly music floats | |
| O’er all the weary world: | |
| Above its sad and lowly plains | |
| They bend on heavenly wing, | |
| And ever o’er its Babel sounds | 15 |
| 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; | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| 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; | 30 |
| 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 | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| |
