O little town

O little town we saw before, so precious in our sight,

How have you passed those days and hours since that most holy night?

What of those restless travelers, bound here by law of Rome

To register and give account in their ancestral home?

 

What of that child born in this town, laid in a manger stall,

Whose birth drew shepherds to this place who heard an angel's call? 

What of his mother Mary dear, and father Joseph too, 

Those homeless migrants stranded in your town; what did you do?

 

O little town we call our own, or city great or small,

Or rural route, or mountainside, wherever home may fall: 

How do we welcome strangers who vainly seek a place?

May we yet learn to show them all God's mercy and God's grace.

 

 

TEXT: Charles Spence Freeman, December 2022.

MUSIC: Tune FOREST GREEN, English folk melody; arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906.

            Alternate tune ST. LOUIS, Lewis Henry Redner, 1868.

 

 

Since this potential "twelve hymns of Christmas" thing hasn't let go yet, what was it like in Bethlehem after that night had passed? And what did become of all those folks who had to come in for that census, or to Mary and Joseph and the child Jesus, after that night? And what would happen in our town in such a circumstance?