Saw You Never, In The Twilight?

Alternate Title: Saw Ye Never In The Twilight

Words: Cecil Frances Humphreys Alexander, 1853

Music: "Harwell," Lowell Mason, 1840
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Meter: 87 87 87 87

1. Saw you never, in the twilight, when the sun had left the skies,
Up in heaven the clear stars shining through the gloom, like silver eyes?
So of old the wise men, watching, saw a little stranger star,
And they knew the King was given, and they followed it from afar.

2. Heard you never of the story how they crossed the desert wild,
Journeyed on by plain and mountain, till they found the holy Child?
How they opened all their treasure, kneeling to that infant King;
Gave the gold and fragrant incense, gave the myrrh in offering?

3. Know ye not that lowly Baby was the bright and morning Star?
He Who came to light the Gentiles, and the darkened isles afar?
And we, too, may seek His cradle; there our hearts' best treasures bring;
Love, and faith, and true devotion for our Savior, God and King.

Sheet Music by Mozart from Rev. Charles Lewis Hutchins, Carols Old and Carols New(Boston: Parish Choir, 1916), Carol #431
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Sheet Music by B. Tours from Hutchins, Carol #648
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Sheet music from A. B. Goodrich, ed., A New Service And Tune Book For Sunday Schools (New York: Gen. Prot. Episc. S. S. Union and Church Book Society, 1863, New Edition, Enlarged, 1866), #16, pp. 36-7.

From The Junior Hymnal (Rock Island, IL: Augustana Book Concern, 1928)
Arrangement by Uzziah C. Burnap (1834-1900) of J. A. Shultze, 1780
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Sheet Music from J. P. McCaskey, ed., Franklin Square Song Collection, No. 1. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881, p. 25.

Note: One source gives 1855 as the date of composition.