Wert thou a witness on that selfsame night
When humble shepherds on Judea’s hills,
Watching their flocks with all attentive care,
Beheld unwonted grandeur in the skies? 
The ordinary stars were glittering
In unaccustomed glory, and the orbs
Which twinkle in that pale celestial train
Which cleaves in twain the ambient universe,
Had changed their milky hue to that of gold;
But all the forms of stellar brilliancy
Made way for that most bright and luminous
Which glowed with holy radiance, which might
Not emanate from aught but sacred star;
Dispensing such serene magnificence
That e’en the admiring heavens stood abashed.

At such a sight,
Though savoring more of blessing than of curse,
Small marvel ’twas their unenlightened minds
Were seized with sudden and peculiar fear,
So that their trembling knees together smote. 
And as they stood
In awestruck trepidation and alarm
The heavens as the bifurcated door
Of some familiar, hospitable tent,
Parted their gorgeous curtains and disclosed
A multitude of the celestial host,
Numerous beyond all efforts to compute,
Solemn of countenance, yet beautiful
Beyond the comprehension of the eye,
Surging in such immaculate array
Of various raiment as the stainless white
Of snows which countless centuries have placed
On rugged Ararat’s tremendous heights,
Were blended in an essence!

Then for a moment’s time
The heavens were silent as those forms were fair;
Then instantly throughout the realms of light
Was heard a crash in sacred unison,
As all the trumpets and the harps of heaven
And all the varied instruments of earth
Had burst in one grand, detonating chord;
Now rose the quavering, vibratory tones
Of flageolet and solitary reed;
Now as a blending of all instruments
In echoing harmonics, sweet and low,
In soft reverberating resonance;
The voice of cornet and sonorous horn
Blent with the warbling accents of the flute
And chime of mellow bells, unknown to earth;
Paean of dulcimer and harpsichord
In combination of concordant tone,
Melting the stars with dulcet symphony.

But sweeter than those instruments of joy,
Tuned by angelic fingers, rose the strains
Of vocal concord and mellifluence,
As swelled in chorus those seraphic throats
In falling cadence and ecstatic flight,
Surpassing heaven’s grandest melody
In all that appertains to choral song! 
The acme of celestial harmony
Which angel ears discerned with glad surprise;
But sweeter than that song, the glad refrain
Wafted from angel tongues innumerable,
To earth and the inhabitants thereof,
“Peace!  Peace on Earth, the Deity’s Good Will!”

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