Edmund Hamilton Sears

Edmund Hamilton Sears Poems

Edmund Hamilton Sears Biography

Edmund Hamilton Sears (April 6, 1810 – January 14, 1876) was a Unitarian parish minister and author who wrote a number of theological works influencing 19th century liberal Protestants. Sears is known today primarily as the man who penned the words to "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" in 1849. It has been sung to two tunes, one by Richard Storrs Willis and another adapted by Arthur Sullivan from a traditional English air.. Sears originally wrote the song as a melancholy reflection on his times while a minister in Wayland, Massachusetts, USA. However, "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" has since become a popular Christmas carol. Born on April 6, 1810, the youngest of three sons of Joseph and Lucy (Smith) Sears, Edmund grew up on a farm within sight of the Berkshire Hills, in Sandisfield, Massachusetts. Sears attended Union College, in Schenectady, New York, where he was a member of the Delta Phi Fraternity. Following graduation from Union in 1834, Sears attended Harvard Divinity School, graduating in 1837 and began to preach as a missionary in Toledo, Ohio, remaining nearly a year. He served Greater Boston Unitarian congregations in Wayland, Lancaster, and Weston. In addition to the above noted hymn, Sears authored the following publications: Regeneration, 1853; Athanasia; Calm on the Listening Ear of Night; Pictures of the Olden Time, 1857; The Fourth Gospel, the Heart of Christ, 1872; and Sermons and Songs of the Christian Life, 1875. With Rev R Ellis he edited "The Monthly Religious Magazine" for twelve years. Basic biographical information on Sears may be found in History of the Church in Weston (1909), and Samuel A. Elliot, Heralds of a Liberal Faith, vol. 3 (1910). A more thorough account is Chandler Robins, "Memoir of Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears," Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 18 (1891). See also Albert Christ-Janer et al., comps., American Hymns Old and New (2 vols., 1980); George W. Cooke, Unitarianism in America (1902); Conrad E. Wright, The Liberal Christians (1970); and Wright, American Unitarianism, 1805-1865 (1989). Obituaries and tributes are in the Unitarian Review (Feb. 1876); the Christian Register, 22 and 29 Jan. 1872; and the Boston Daily Advertiser, 18 Jan. 1876. He died January 14, 1876, in Weston, Massachusetts.)

The Best Poem Of Edmund Hamilton Sears

The Angels' Song

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, good will 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 unfurl
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 blessed 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 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.

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