One Silent Night

December 23, 2020 at 11:58 pm (Christmas, Culture, History, Music, Poetry, Songs) (Christmas poetry, poem, Silent Night)

It was a quiet night in 1816
When a young Austrian priest
Joseph Mohr
Went for a walk
Around the village of Oberndorf
In Austria

He looked out over a very quiet
snow-laden town
And the stars glistening
In the frosty heavens above

In his mind’s eye
He saw a beautiful young maiden
Wrapping a newborn babe
In a blanket
In a stable
In the back courtyard
Of an old inn
At the edge of a small town

The young maiden sang the sweetest lullaby
To her young son
He did not understand the words to the song
The young maiden sang
But it was the sweetest melody he had ever heard

He went home and wrote words to the melody
He did not know the words the young maiden sang
But he wrote the words of what he himself
Saw that night

A couple of years later
Franz Zaber Gruber
The choir director
Of Saint Nicholas Church
In Oberndorf
Wrote music to accompany
The words that Father Mohr
Had written to accompany
The melody he heard in his mind

And that Christmas Eve in 1818
At Saint Nicholas Church in Oberndorf
Austrian villagers first heard
The song lyrics and melody
To
Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht

Silent night, holy night.

-A poem written by Christopher
Wednesday December 23rd 2020
The Night Before
Christmas Eve 2020.