Silent Night Poem by Kim Barney

Silent Night (Acrostic)

So great a song! Its power can't be tracked.
Imagine! It was written for guitar,
Long years ago, two hundred years, in fact.
Embrace the fact that this song is a star.
No other song endures the way this does.
The tune is loved today and always was.

Note that the words were penned by Joseph Mohr;
In fact, a poem it was two years before.
Gruber it was who made the words a song.
He played the tune while Joseph sang along.
This song will last and thrill forevermore.






- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
In the little village of Oberndorf, Austria, in 1818, just before Christmas, there was a problem. The organ was broken in the little chapel. Joseph Mohr, the priest, took a copy of a poem he had written two years earlier to Franz Gruber, the organist, and Gruber composed a song from it written especially for guitar.
They performed the song for the first time on Christmas Eve,1818. Mohr sang tenor while Gruber played the guitar and sang bass. The song was a huge hit and has been extremely popular ever since. I loved the English version as a child (had never heard another) but heard the original German in 1962 and I love it as well. What shows in the poem area is the first stanza of the poem written by Joseph Mohr:

Stille nacht, heilige nacht, alles schläft,
einsam wacht nur das traute hochheilige Paar,
holder Knabe im lockkigen Haar,
schlaf in himmlischer Ruh, schlaf in himmlischer Ruh.