Christians, Awake, Salute the Happy Morn

Lyrics

Christians, awake! salute the happy morn,
whereon the saviour of the world was born;
rise to adore the mystery of love,
which hosts of angels chanted from above:
with them the joyful tidings first begun
of God incarnate and the virgin's son.

Then to the watchful shepherds it was told,
who heard the angelic herald's voice, 'Behold,
I bring good tidings of a saviour's birth
to you and all the nations upon earth:
this day hath God fulfilled his promised word,
this day is born a saviour, Christ the Lord.'

O may we keep and ponder in our mind
God's wondrous love in saving lost mankind;
trace we the babe, who hath retrieved our loss,
from his poor manger to his bitter cross;
tread in his steps, assisted by his grace,
‘til man's first heavenly state again takes place.

Then may we hope, the angelic hosts among,
to sing, redeemed, a glad triumphal song:
he that was born upon this joyful day
around us all his glory shall display;
saved by his love, incessant we shall sing
eternal praise to heaven’s almighty King.

History

John Byrom was born in Manchester on 29 February 1692 and died there on 26 September 1763. He studied at Cambridge and then medicine at Montpellier, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1724. He is also remembered for a shorthand system, which he patented in 1740 as his 'New Universal Shorthand'; Parliament passed the Shorthand Act in 1741 giving him sole publishing rights for 21 years.

The Christmas hymn began as a poem headed 'Christmas Day. For Dolly', a manuscript now in Chetham's Library, Manchester, addressed to his daughter Dorothy. A well-known story holds that he promised her a Christmas poem in December 1745 and that she found it, in an envelope in his handwriting, among her presents on Christmas morning; however, there is no evidence for the story that he wrote it specially for her. The dating is unsettled: the manuscript is usually placed between 1745 and 1750, another source gives 1749, and Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology gives 1750 as the earliest date it could name. The original poem had three paragraphs of sixteen lines; it was published after Byrom's death, in Poems (1773), and was adapted for hymnals later, appearing in Thomas Cotterill's Selection of Psalms and Hymns (1819).

The tune most closely associated with the words is YORKSHIRE, also called STOCKPORT, by John Wainwright, who was born in Stockport in 1723 and died there in 1768. He wrote it in 1750, and it was first sung on Christmas Day 1750 at Stockport parish church; some accounts say a group of local men and boys sang it under Wainwright's direction that Christmas. The melody was first printed in Caleb Ashworth's Collection of Tunes (1760 or 1761, sources differ) and in Wainwright's own collection, which is thought to date from about 1766. Of the hymnal entries on Hymnary.org that name a tune, most give YORKSHIRE or STOCKPORT.

Performance

The page's video, titled 'Christians Awake! Salute the Happy Morn', runs about 3 minutes 33 seconds; its title and description name the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields as the performers.

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