Song Lyric of the Day (‘O Little Town of Bethlehem,’ on ‘The Hopes and Fears of All the Years’)

“O little town of Bethlehem

How still we see thee lie

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

The silent stars go by

Yet in thy dark streets shineth

The everlasting Light

The hopes and fears of all the years

Are met in thee tonight.”— “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” lyrics by Phillips Brooks, music by Lewis Redner (1868)

One of my favorite Christmas hymns—and, judging by the number of times it’s been recorded, a favorite of millions around the world—is this song. I knew that I had to blog about it when I read, among the biographical notes in the Library of America’s marvelous anthology American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century, that its first public performance occurred 150 years ago today.

The lyricist, Episcopalian minister Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), wrote this for the Sunday school connected to Philadelphia's Holy Trinity Church, which he served as rector. At 6 feet, 4 inches and nearly 300 pounds, Brooks was among the most commanding Victorian preachers in the pulpit but he was gentle and thoughtful with the children of his church.

The Christmas song he wrote for them, inspired by a trip to the Holy Land a few years before, is deceptively simple: easy enough to remember, but with words that resonate just as powerfully with adults. I’m talking especially of these verses: “The hopes and fears of all the years/

Are met in thee tonight.”

Everything, Brooks suggests, is riding on this moment in a humble town. For the first time, God, taking human form, can break the cycle of hate and violence in the world. At last, time can take on new dimensions—a past with its imperfections, a present with perceptible change, and a future that admits, at long last, of progress, unity, and equality of all human beings. (In the Civil War and early Reconstruction period, Brooks had advocated not only emancipation, but also the right of former slaves to vote.)