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Updated 01/13/2020

 

O Sing a Song of Bethlehem

“O Sing a Song of Bethlehem” was composed by Louis F. Benson. Louis FitzGerald Benson, D.D., was born at Philadelphia, Penn., July 22, 1855, and educated at the University of Penn. He was admitted to the Bar in 1877, and practiced until 1884. After a course of theological studies he was ordained by the Presbytery of Philadelphia North, in 1888. His pastorate of the Church of the Redeemer, Germantown, Philadelphia, extended from his ordination in 1888 to 1894, when he resigned and devoted himself to literary and Church work at Philadelphia.

The tune is Kingsfold. Thought by some scholars to date back to the Middle Ages, Kingsfold is a folk tune set to a variety of texts in England and Ireland. The tune was published in English Country Songs (1893), an anthology compiled by Lucy E. Broadwood and J. A. Fuller Maitland. After having heard the tune in Kingsfold, Sussex, England (thus its name), Ralph Vaughan Williams introduced it as a hymn tune in The English Hymnal (1906) as a setting for Horatius Bonar's "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say".

 

 

Lyrics by Louis F. Benson

  O sing a song of Bethlehem,
Of shepherds watching there,
And of the news that came to them
From angels in the air:
The light that shone on Bethlehem
Fills all the world today;
Of Jesus' birth and peace on earth
The angels sing alway.
 

O sing a song of Nazareth,
Of sunny days of joy,
O sing of fragrant flowers' breath,
And of the sinless boy:
For now the flow'rs of Nazareth
In ev'ry heart may grow;
Now spreads the fame of his dear name
On all the winds that blow.

O sing a song of Galilee,
Of lake and woods and hill,
Of him who walked upon the sea
And bade the waves be still:
For though, like waves on Galilee,
Dark seas of trouble roll,
When faith has heard the Master's word,
Falls peace upon the soul.
 

O sing a song of Calvary,
Its glory and dismay;
Of him who hung upon the tree,
And took our sins away:
For he who died on Calvary
Is risen from the grave,
And Christ, our Lord, by heav'n adored,
Is mighty now to save.