Coming up this Saturday ... Jim Gleason's Little People - Part 2

From WWR

Trivia, story behind the song, etc.

This is an abridged version of Edmund Hamilton Sears’ lyric, published in Boston in 1849. Sears was a Unitarian minister widely praised after this poem first appeared in print; the attention made him uncomfortable, as he “preferred to lead a quiet life in some half-forgotten parish.” (Merry Christmas Songbook, Reader’s Digest, p. 5) The poem was set to music by New York Tribune editor and critic Richard Storrs Willis in 1850. I had never really heard the powerful message of peace in this song; it was an exciting discovery. I changed the order of the verses to display the verse I’d never heard before more prominently. [1]

Lyrics

Yet 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;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing.

It came upon a 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.

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By poets and prophets 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 will give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

Zig –  guitars and vocals
Geoff – lead guitar, bass, percussion
Mary Jane Reynolds – keyboard

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