Christmas Hymns II

This was one of the second wave of Christmas songs that I learned. Less like a lullaby than the carols I'd known practically from the cradle-- "Silent Night", "Away in the Manger." More intricate musically, and a more mature message in the lyrics. Which was mostly lost on me until I became familiar with the words beyond the first verse. I never cared much one way or another for it until I learned what we now know as the second verse...but is actually the third verse of this Christmas poem written by a Unitarian minister in Massachusetts in 1849 as part of his Christmas Eve message for his flock. I love the imagery here of the "cloven sky" and the "peaceful wings unfurled."

It crossed my mind to post the now-unused second verse here, but I thought that might be cheating. It does, however, contain the meat of the message of the song, so here it is:

Yet with the woes of sin and strife,
The world hath 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.