Hear the angels sing

I went to St Albans Abbey on Christmas Eve for Midnight Mass. (The Abbey is a special place for me - at school we'd have a school service there once a term, and now the Lady Chapel is one of the places I go to be quiet and to think.)


The first hymn was "It came upon the midnight clear" - I'm sure I've sung it before, but I've never noticed how lovely the words are - what a wonderful idea, that the Angels are singing, if only we can be still, put aside conflict and material struggles, to hear them.

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

And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing
O rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When, with the ever-circling years,
Shall come the Age of Gold;
When peace shall over all the earth,
Its ancient splendors fling,
And all the world give back the song,
Which now the angels sing.