Brightest and Best

Lyrics

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid;
star of the east, the horizon adorning,
guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.

Cold on his cradle the dew-drops are shining;
low lies his head with the beasts of the stall;
angels adore him in slumber reclining,
Maker and Monarch and Saviour of all.

Say, shall we yield him, in costly devotion,
odours of Edom, and offerings divine,
gems of the mountain and pearls of the ocean,
myrrh from the forest, or gold from the mine?

Vainly we offer each ample oblation,
vainly with gifts would his favour secure:
richer by far is the heart's adoration,
dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid;
star of the east, the horizon adorning,
guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.

History

"Brightest and Best" is an Epiphany hymn by Reginald Heber (1783-1826), an Anglican clergyman who was vicar of Hodnet from 1807 and Bishop of Calcutta from 1823, and who died at Trichinopoly on 3 April 1826. It first appeared in The Christian Observer in November 1811. Heber spent years working on a hymnal with a hymn for every Sunday and major feast of the church year, described as the first of its kind in the Church of England, and this text belongs to that project. A draft sent to the writer Henry Hart Milman in December 1820 assigns it to Christmas Day, but a later page of the same manuscript lists it as a possibility for Epiphany, and the posthumous collection published by his widow Amelia in 1827, Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year, placed it at Epiphany. It had already been printed in 1825 in The Evangelical Magazine and in James Montgomery's Christian Psalmist.

The text is in the 11.10.11.10 metre and is dactylic in rhythm. Its opening lines have been linked to the "morning stars" of Job 38:7, and it draws on the story of the magi in Matthew 2, with a glance back to the nativity scene of Luke 2 in the second verse. The third verse lists lavish gifts, and the fourth sets them against the heart's adoration and the prayers of the poor. In most printings the first verse is repeated at the close.

The hymn has been controversial from early on. John Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology (1892) recorded early objections that it encouraged the worship of a star and that its metre sounded like a dance. The Praise! hymn notes say John Ellerton shared the first concern, while also observing that Psalm 148 gives some support to addressing the heavenly bodies. Percy Dearmer dismissed the objections, and noted that Hymns Ancient and Modern rejected the hymn in 1861. Because "sons of the morning" can recall the "son of the morning" of Isaiah 14:12, some modern books change the first line to "stars" (the Lutheran Book of Worship, 1978) or "suns" (some UK books following Hymns for Today's Church, 1987).

Many tunes have been paired with the words. MORNING STAR was composed by James P. Harding (1850-1911) in 1892 and entered hymnals in 1894; EPIPHANY is by Joseph Francis Thrupp (1827-1867); LIEBSTER IMMANUEL, a German hymn tune associated with a text attributed to Ahasverus Fritsch (1629-1701), was adopted, in Bach's harmonisation, by The English Hymnal; and STAR IN THE EAST is an American shape-note folk tune.

Performance

This recording, published on the St Peter's YouTube channel on 24 November 2024, is performed by St Martin's Voices. It runs about 3 minutes 12 seconds and sings five verses, the fifth repeating the first.

Sources: hymnologyarchive.com · en.wikipedia.org · praise.org.uk · hymnary.org · St Martin's Voices recording and Words book