It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

(album: Christmas Eve With Burl Ives - 1957)

It came upon the midnight clear
That glorious song of old
From Angels banding near the earth
To touch their harps of gold

Peace on the earth could will two men
From Heaven's all-gracious King
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the Angels sing

Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world

Above it's sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed Angels sing

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long
Beneath the heavenly strains have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong

And man, at war with man, hears not
The tidings which they bring
O hush the noise, ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing