Angels from the Realms of Glory

[ancientandmodern]

Angels from the realms of glory,
wing your flight o'er all the earth;
ye who sang creation's story
now proclaim Messiah's birth:
Come and worship Christ the new-born King

Shepherds in the fields abiding,
watching o'er your flocks by night,
God with us is now residing;
yonder shines the infant Light:
Come and worship Christ the new-born King

Sages, leave your contemplations;
brighter visions beam afar;
seek the great Desire of Nations;
ye have seen his natal star:
Come and worship Christ the new-born King

Saints before the altar bending,
watching long in hope and fear,
suddenly the Lord, descending,
in his temple shall appear:
Come and worship Christ the new-born King

Though an infant now we view him,
he shall fill his Father's throne,
gather all the nations to him;
every knee shall then bow down:
Come and worship Christ the new-born King

A good lively one, this, particularly the way they do it in this video, with all the bells and, er, angels... It covers, most conveniently, everything from Christmas (angels and shepherds), via Epiphany (sages) to Candlemas (saints before the altar bending), seamlessly linking season to season, and, perhaps more subtly, creation to the end of time, with the Incarnation at the centre. We meet the infant Christ as the first worshippers did, and in a certain sense we're still stuck there, still seeing Jesus as the baby, the human; we can't quite grasp the reality of his divinity - and perhaps the frankly painful rhyme in the last verse reflects that disconnect.

James Montgomery, the poet, was one whose name was writ in hot water: editor of the Sheffield Iris (hence, one assumes, the name of the tune), he was twice imprisoned for publishing ill-judged political articles, but this and his other hymns are probably his most lasting legacy - and not a legacy to be sneezed at, either. The tune is trad. French, though Wikipedia informs me that prior to the nineteen-twenties - thus, effectively, for the first century of its popular use - Angels was sung to the splendid Regent Square, thus. It remains the preferred tune in the US.