One of The Best Christmas Hymns You've Never Heard.

1. Hail the blest morn, see the great Mediator,
Down from the regions of glory descend!
Shepherds, go worship the babe in the manger,
Lo, for his guard the bright angels attend.

2. Cold on his cradle the dewdrops are shining;
Low lies his bed with the beasts of the stall;
Angels adore him, in slumbers reclining,
Wise men and shepherds before him do fall.

3. Say, shall we yield him, in costly devotion,
Odors of Eden and offerings divine?
Gems from the mountain, and pearls from the ocean,
Myrrh from the forest, and gold from the mine?

4. Vainly we offer each ample oblation;
Vainly with gold we his favor secure;
Richer by far is the heart's adoration;
Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.

5. Low at his feet we in humble prostration,
Lose all our sorrow and trouble and strife;
There we receive his divine consolation,
Flowing afresh from the fountain of life.

6. He is our friend in the midst of temptation,
Faithful supporter, whose love cannot fail;
Rock of our refuge, and hope of salvation,
Light to direct us through death's gloomy vale.

7. Star of the morning, thy brightness, declining,
Shortly must fade when the sun doth arise:
Beaming refulgent, his glory eternal
Shines on the children of love in the skies.

"Hail the Blest Morn"  is #310 in Southern Harmony. The tune name is THE SHEPHERD'S STAR.   The music is available here, from the Calvin Hymnary Project, as a full size image.  See the shape notes?   And isn't "refulgent" the best word you've heard all year?

Comments

[Barb the Evil Genius]

1.

But this hymn is very much like TLH #128, Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning. Except it doesn't have that refulgent word.

[Elephantschild]

2.

I suppose they might have similar history, the two hymns.

The tunes bear no resemblance to each other, though. Too bad I couldn't find a YouTube video of the song. It's good!

[Barb the Evil Genius]

3.

Thanks to my great Alta Vista-fu, I found a site that has a midi of Hail the Blest Morn, with sheet music, that also includes the alternate tune for Brightest and Best in the sheet music. I can't listen to it on my Linux OS laptop but I'll see if Mr. BTEG will play it for me when he gets home.

http://www.thecaroler.com/christmasmusic/index.html

[Roger (Big Doofus)]

4.

BTEG - You have a Linux laptop? How cool!! Are you running Red Hat? Ubuntu? What possessed you to have a Linux laptop?

[Roger (Big Doofus)]

5.

EC - What's the deal with the "shape notes?" What am I missing here? Are they just half notes or what?

[Barb the Evil Genius]

6.

I'm running Ubuntu. And what possessed me to have a Linux laptop is my geek husband, who firmly believes that Linux is superior to anything Microsoft could ever produce. And I agree with him.

[elephantschild]

7.

Here you go, BD: http://fasola.org/

That explains the shape-notes a little bit better than I could.

[Susan G]

8.

All right, WHO decided (when they put this hymn into TLH and LSB) to leave out stanzas 5 and 6? Those are the better than any of the stanzas in our hymnal.

[Cheryl]

9.

Why am I not seeing the comments when I click on "Comments"?

Cheryl, puzzled

[Cheryl]

10.

There they are!

[elephantschild]

11.

But the tune is different, she says weakly. The tune in LSB is a THIRD tune.

"Brightest and Best" was written by Reginald Heber, 1783-1826. Southern Harmony was first published in 1835.

Someone was cheating or Huber's words were lost everywhere except in Southern Harmony, OR whomever put it into Southern Harmony wrote more verses than what Heber had!

It appears from here that the "Brightest and Best" lines may have originally intended as a chorus. It was first published in 1811.

And not a single of several geeky hymnal sites can I find verses 5 & 6 above included with Reginald Hebers original words! How about that! So maybe the reason verses 5 & 6 aren't included is because in 1941 the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod was hardly sourcing their hymns from Southern Baptist singing books. They may not have been aware the verses existed.