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"It Came Upon the Midnight Clear", skriven av Edmund Sears (1810-1876) som var pastor för trossamfundet Unitarian Church i Wayland, Massachusetts i delstaten Massachusetts i USA. Den kom den 29 december 1849 med i Bostontidningen) Christian Register. Edmund Sears sägs ha skrivit orden på önskan av en vän, W. P. Lunt, en minister i Quincy, Massachusetts. 1850 skrev Richard Storrs Willis, en kompositör som tog lektioner hos Felix Mendelssohn men också skrev för tidningen New York Tribune, melodin "Carol". Melodin som användes i England, kallad "Noel", togs från en engelsk melodi gjord av kompositören Arthur Sullivan.

Denna sång är också berömd under titeln "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear".

1981 spelade den svenska dansbandssångaren Stefan Borsch in en cover på sången på svenska, och då hette den "Jag ser en stjärna på himmelen".

2006 låg en inspelning av Hall & Oates högst upp i topp på listan Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks

Text

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth, goodwill to 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 its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessèd angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
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 seen of old,
When with the ever-encircling years
Shall come the time foretold
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.