(no subject)

[tree_and_leaf]

Another of my favourite carols, although I cannot find a recording of the British tune for this; what’s more, most of the versions of the American one are extremely cheesy :(

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;
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.
Edmund Hamilton Sears (1810-1876)

I am sure, incidentally, that the ‘age of gold’ is a reference to the Eclogues and P. Vergilius Maro, prophet of the Gentiles. It would be one of my favourite carols anyway, but this is an additional bonus.

As a curiosity, the Sixpence None The Richer take on it, accompanying, of all things, a fanvid for The Secret Garden. They cut out the age of gold, though. *sigh*. Apart from anything else, it distorts the theology of the hymn, and makes it only look back, not forward as well…

Comments

[azdak.livejournal.com]

I've never come across verse 4 before (I have to say, I can see why it gets omitted), but I passionately love "Hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing" and "When peace shall over all the earth her ancient splendours fling".

[tree_and_leaf]

Verse four usually seems to be omitted from British hymn books (like you, I can see why, but I have completist tendencies!) - though oddly, from my digging around on youTube, American renditions seem to be more likely to keep verse four and discard verse five - which seems perverse, because verse five is magnificent...

[azdak.livejournal.com]

American versions of traditional British hymns are weird, though. I seem to recall that "offspring of the virgin's womb" turns into "came to earth from heaven his home" in the US version of HTHAS (and another version has "offspring of the favored one" - anything to avoid the w-word, apparently), quite aside from having the WRONG tunes.

[tree_and_leaf]

To be fair, "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" is American in the first place (by a Unitarian, which I must admit I find vaguely surprising). But I still like the British tune better (it's rarely a good idea to argue with Vaughan Williams' choices for hymn tunes!)

Squeamishness generally has a bad effect on hymn words, too (though I admit that I don't think 'Lo, he abhors not the virgin's womb' is particularly good English, but my problem is with 'abhor' rather than mentioning wombs!)

ETA: I wonder if the 'favoured one' thing isn't also trying to avoid saying virgin? Some evangelicals object to references to 'the Virgin Mary' because it implies perpetual virginity (though 'virgin womb' doesn't, in fact, do so). Or possibly they're trying to sound accessible and not expect people to believe in the virgin birth?

[azdak.livejournal.com]

To be fair, "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" is American in the first place

But I don't wanna be fair! please don't make me be fair!

I wonder if the 'favoured one' thing isn't also trying to avoid saying virgin?

That could be. Residual anti-Catholicism, maybe?

[tree_and_leaf]

Residual anti-Catholicism, maybe?

There's a surprisingly large amount of it about.