’Tis midnight. O’er Judean fields afar
A holy silence reigns;
And oh! how brightly burns each lovely star,
Upon those heav’nly plains;
The terraced hills, and every rocky height,
Is softened by the pale moon’s mellow light:
How holy, holy is the night!

Where skyward-looking hillocks kneel in prayer,
By Edar’s ancient tower;
God-fearing shepherds guard their fleecy care,
At that momentous hour:
If they but knew, those holy men and good—
By nature’s deep pulsation understood—
How holy, holy was the night!

Marked ye how on the dial plate of time,
Lone watchers of the plain,
Prophetic hands have met to sound the prime
Of our Messiah’s reign?
And heard ye not within the world’s high tower
The striking of that great, eventful hour?
How holy, holy is the night!

E’en now, while ye await the Morning-star,
That lights celestial globes,
Bright heralds in the heavenly halls afar
Gird up their flowing robes.
O happy men! what kings might deem delight,
Shall not be hidden from your humble sight:
How holy, holy is the night!

Behold, what light, above the highest noon,
Illumes the nightly scene;
The brightest stars, that lately shone aboon,
Are lost in golden sheen;
And midst the trembling shepherds one appears,
Whose form is light—whose smile becalms their fears:
How holy, holy is the night!

And hark! cherubic armies shout their song
Of joy and praise on high;
Gloria in Excelsis rolls along
The archway of the sky;
Good will to men, and peace on earth resound
From hill to hill—to earth’s remotest bound:
How holy, holy is the night!

Bright sons of morning sang, with Heav’n tuned skill,
The young Creation’s birth;
And harpers sweetly harped on Zion’s hill—
But ne’er were heard on earth
Such glorious stains of rapture and delight,
As roll along those corridors of light:
How holy, holy is the night!

But on, lead on toward Bethlehem, nor fail
To mark that heav’nly sign;
The infant Savior of the world there hail,
Low in the manger’s shrine;
There shines the Morning-star, there dawns the day,
There breaks the Light that drives the night away:
Hail, holy Light! to Thee I pray.

Charles W. E. Siegel
A Hundred Years Ago, and Other Poems, 1875