Earth Listened Far and Wide (Day Nine)

We celebrate the day
Of triumph and of rest,
When, shown of God and shaped in clay,
The Word was manifest.

The angels saw and sung,
Earth listened far and wide,
Believed and preached -- a faith, a tongue,
The Word was glorified.

God, give it gracious sweep,
And here its errand bless,
Whose mercy sent it o'er the deep
To glad a wilderness.

Shoot forth its starry light
To guide our pilgrim way,
A sign of hope through this world's night,
And brighter than its day.

Again thy witness-voice!
Again thy Spirit-dove!
That hearts may in its trust rejoice,
And soften with its love.

Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham, 1835; alt.
Tune: WINDERMERE (S.M.)
Arthur Somervell, 1906

Christmas is also known in some circles as the Feast of the Incarnation.  The well-known opening verses of the Gospel of John announce the coming of the Word made flesh, and this hymn is derived from that idea.

Unitarian minister and poet Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham wrote this text in 1835 for the ordination of William Parsons Lunt at the United First Parish Church in Quincy. MA.  Lunt has another musical Christmas connection, as it was at his request that Edmund Hamilton Sears wrote It came upon the midnight clear for Lunt's Sunday School in 1849.



Seven Years Ago: Elizabeth Rundle Charles

Six Years Ago: Lo! how a Rose e'er blooming

Five Years Ago: Elizabeth Rundle Charles

Three Years Ago: Elizabeth Rundle Charles

The Dayspring From On High (Day Four)

Calm on the listening ear of night
Come heaven's melodious strains,
Where wild Judea stretches far
Her silver-mantled plains.

Celestial choirs from courts above
Shed sacred glories there;
And angels, with their sparkling lyres,
Make music on the air.

The answering hills of Palestine
Send back the glad reply;
And greet, from all their holy heights,
The Dayspring from on high.

O'er the blue depths of Galilee
There comes a holier calm,
And Sharon waves, in solemn praise,
Her silent groves of palm.

"Glory to God!" the sounding skies
Loud with their anthems ring,
"Peace to the earth, good-will to all,
From heaven the news we bring!"

Light on thy hills, Jerusalem!
The Savior now is born!
And bright on Bethlehem's joyous plains
Breaks the first Christmas morn.

Edmund Hamilton Sears, 1834; alt.
Tune: ST. AGNES (C.M.)
John Bacchus Dykes, 1866

Though minister and poet Edmund Hamilton Sears was a Unitarian, he wrote at least two hymns for Christmas. His other one is far more well known, but this text was in more than 300 hymnals up until the middle of the twentieth century.

Sears was also the uncle of hymnwriter Eliza Scudder.



Six Years Ago: Peaceful the wondrous night

The World In Solemn Stillness Lay

Massachusetts minister Edmund Hamilton Sears published his most famous hymn in the December 29, 1849 issue of the Christian Register, a popular Unitarian weekly magazine that is still published today as UU World. The following year the text was paired with a tune by Richard Storrs Willis and has since become one of the most familiar songs we sing at Christmas, even though it never specifically mentions the birth of Jesus.

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 earth, good will to all,
From heaven the news we bring."
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.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the heavenly strains have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And we, engaged in war, hear not
The tidings which they bring;
O hush the noise and cease your strife
And hear the angels sing!

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:
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When Peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

Edmund Hamilton Sears, 1849; alt.
Tune: CAROL (C.M.D.)
Richard Storrs Willis, 1850

I never will forget encountering the words of the fourth verse (sometimes left out of modern hymnals) on a memorial panel of the NAMES Project quilt nearly twenty years ago.

Willis's tune was used for other hymn texts in the nineteenth century, though it's hard for us today to imagine it outside of Christmas. I think the strangest match I've seen is the Lenten hymn There is a green hill far away (only using the first two lines of this tune). This probably wouldn't bother the English, who sing It came upon... to the tune NOEL, a folk melody arranged by Arthur Sullivan.

More Voices Found: Eliza Scudder

Eliza Scudder (November 14, 1821 - September 29, 1896) was born in Barnstable, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, and lived in the eastern part of that state for most of her life. Her uncle was Edmund Hamilton Sears, author of It came upon the midnight clear, and he included today's hymn in a book of his own before it was published in any hymnals.

Unlike many other hymnwriters, she was not associated with one single denomination; she was a Congregationalist for a time, then associated herself with the Unitarians. A number of her hymns were included in Longfellow and Johnson's Hymns of the Spirit in 1864. Still later she was captivated by the preaching and ministry of Phillips Brooks at Trinity Church in Boston and became an Episcopalian. (Continuing an inadvertent Christmas theme, Brooks wrote O little town of Bethlehem.)

In 1880 Scudder published Hymns and Sonnets, a small collection of her work.

Thou Grace Divine, encircling all,
A shoreless, soundless sea!
Wherein at last our souls shall fall
O love of God most free!

When over dizzy heights we go,
Thy strong hand guides our eyes,
The other leads us safe and slow
O love of God most wise!

And if we turn us from thy face,
And wander wide and long,
Thou hold’st us still in thine embrace,
O love of God most strong!

But not alone thy care we claim,
Our daily path to win,
We know thee by a dearer Name,
O love of God within!

And filled and quickened by thy breath,
Our souls are strong and free,
To rise o’er grief and fear and death,
O love of God, to thee!

Eliza Scudder, 1857; alt.
Tune: MANOAH (C.M.)
Gioacchino Rossini; adapt. Henry Greatorex, 1851

I'm not exactly sure where in composer Rossini's work this tune is found, but hymnal editors of the mid-nineteenth century liked to adapt melodies from the work of secular composers (operas, oratorios, chamber music, etc.) into hymn tunes. There are very few of these that we sing anymore, but MANOAH has survived better than most, even though it's a bit of a waltz.

I will be looking further into the hymns of Eliza Scudder; though I like and have sung this one I'm seeing some other interesting ones as well.