"Hymn For Christmas Day"
Words: Charles Wesley (1707-1788), Hymns and Sacred Poems, 1739
Adapted as Hark! The Herald Angels Sing - Version 1
Compare: Sandys, 1833, alt. (Version 2)
Music: Dent Dale
MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF / XML
Meter: 77 77
1. Hark, how all the welkin rings,
"Glory to the King of kings;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconcil'd!"
2. Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
Universal nature say,
"Christ the Lord is born to-day!"
3. Christ, by highest Heaven ador'd,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of a virgin's womb!
4. Veil'd in flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail th' incarnate Deity!
Pleas'd as man with men to appear,
Jesus, our Immanuel here!
5. Hail, the heavenly Prince of Peace,
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.
6. Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born to give them second birth.
7. Come, desire of nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman's conquering seed,
Bruise in us the serpent's head.
8. Now display thy saving power,
Ruin'd nature now restore;
Now in mystic union join
Thine to ours, and ours to thine.
9. Adam's likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp thy image in its place.
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy love.
10. Let us thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the life, the inner man:
O, to all thyself impart,
Form'd in each believing heart.
Also found in Roundell Palmer, ed., The Book of Praise. Boston: Sever, Francis, & Co., 1870, # XXXIV, pp. 40-41.
Altered second line of tenth verse:
10. Let us thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the life, the Heavenly Man:
Note from Palmer:
“The text is that of the fourth edition (1743) of Hymns and Sacred Poems, by John and Charles Wesley; differing in one word only (“Heavenly” instead of “Inner,” in the second line of the last stanza) from the first edition, published in 1739. The common variation, beginning “Hark, the herald angels sing,” is probably by Martin Madan (1760) who, besides altering several lines, has left out part (but no the whole) of the last two stanzas, which are usually omitted at the end of modern editions of the New Version of the Psalms. The word “welkin,” in the first line, is open to criticism, but in other respects I prefer Wesley's original to Madan's variation.”
Alternate fifth verse from John Clark Hollister, ed., The Sunday-School Service and Tune Book (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1863, 1865), #18, p. 37. The lines are reversed from the original, where the last line becomes the first, the third line becomes the second, etc.:
5. Risen with healing in his wings,
Light and life to all he brings;
Hail the Sun of righteousness,
Hail the heaven-born Prince of peace.
Sheet Music from John Clark Hollister, ed., The Sunday-School Service and Tune Book (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1863, 1865), #18, p. 37.
Sheet Music "Mendelssohn" from Henry Sloane Coffin and Ambrose White Vernon, eds., Hymns of the Kingdom of God. New York: The A. S. Barnes Company, 1910, #42, p. 78.
Meter: 77 77 D
Note:
The hymn underwent many changes from the time that Wesley first penned these words until the present day.
We don't know what Charles Wesley thought about the many changes to his hymn, some of which were made during his lifetime, but his brother John had this to say in the Preface to the 1780 edition:
Many gentlemen have done my brother and me (though without naming us) the honour to reprint many of our Hymns. Now they are perfectly welcome so to do, provided they print them just as they are. But I desire they would not attempt to mend them; for they really are not able. None of them is able to mend either the sense or the verse.
Therefore, I must beg of them one of these two favours; either to let them stand just as they are, to take them for better for worse; or to add the true reading in the margin, or at the bottom of the page; that we may no longer be accountable either for the nonsense or for the doggerel of other men.
