“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
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.)
