A Thousand Years Have Come and Gone

Words: Thomas Toke Lynch, 1868

Music: "Noel," traditional air; arranged by Arthur Seymour Sullivan, 1871
MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF

Also for verses 1, 3, & 4: Carol 439, Rev. Charles Lewis Hutchins, Carols Old and Carols New (Boston: Parish Choir, 1916)

1. A thousand years have come and gone,
And near a thousand more,
Since happier light from Heaven shone
Than ever shone before:
And in the hearts of old and young
A joy most joyful stirred,
That send such news from tongue to tongue,
As ears had never heard.

2. Then angels on their starry way
Felt bliss unfelt before,
For news that men should be as they
To darkened earth they bore;
So toiling men and spirits bright
A first communion had,
And in meek mercy's rising light
Were each exceeding glad.

3. And we are glad, and we will sing,
As in the days of yore;
Come all, and hearts made ready bring,
To welcome back once more
The day when first the wintry earth
A summer change began,
And dawning on a lonely birth,
Up rose the light of man.

4. For troubles such as man must bear,
From childhood to four-score,
He shared with us, that we might share
His joy for ever more;
And twice a thousand years of grief,
Of conflict, and of sin,
May tell how large the harvest sheaf
His patient love shall win.

Sheet Music "Noel" a traditional air arranged by Arthur Sullivan, 1874, from Henry Sloane Coffin and Ambrose White Vernon, eds., Hymns of the Kingdom of God. New York: The A. S. Barnes Company, 1910, #44, p. 80.

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