Song of the Day - 25th December

Merry, Merry Christmas everyone!!

I hope you are enjoying your Christmas morning and commiserations to those of you with young children who were no doubt up at the crack of dawn, fizzing with excitement about Father Christmas arriving!!! I promise, it does get better! I had to actually wake my 17-year-old up this morning to come down for presents.

Today's Song of the Day is a setting of a poem called The Star of Bethlehem by William Cullen Bryant (1794 – 1878), an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. Born in a log cabin in Massachusetts, he started his career as a lawyer but showed an interest in poetry early in his life.

Bryant wrote this poem as a hymn for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Church of the Messiah in Boston, Massachusetts. It was also sung at his funeral. In praise of the Star of Bethlehem., it rejoices that children are led to the Saviour by the Star and entreats that this continue.

The Star of Bethlehem

By William Cullen Bryant

As shadows cast by cloud and sun

Flit o'er the summer grass,

So, in Thy sight, Almighty One!

Earth's generations pass.

And while the years, an endless host,

Come pressing swiftly on,

The brightest names that earth can boast

Just glisten, and are gone.

Yet doth the Star of Bethlehem shed

A lustre pure and sweet;

And still it lends, as once it led,

To the Messiah's feet.

And deeply, at this later day,

Our hearts rejoice to see

How children, guided by its ray,

Come to the Saviour's knee.

O Father, may that Holy Star

Grow every year more bright,

And send its glorious beam afar,

To fill the world with light.