As is the case with “Away in a Manger,” the well known back story is not entirely true. The lyrics were written in 1816 by Father Joseph Mohr (1792-1848). The tune was composed on Christmas Eve in just a few hours in 1818 by Franz Gruber (1787-1863), so that the song could be performed by Mohr at Christmas midnight mass. But the popular story of how the church organ had broken down, it seems, comes from dramatic license, as the story was presented in a Hallmark Theater radio drama broadcast in 1948.

John Freeman Young (1820-1885) translated Mohr’s German lyrics into English in 1859. The grammar of his translation is tricky in several places. The flow of the sentence can run from one line to the next, making it easy to miss the point when we are singing. In the first stanza, the singers need to pay attention as we first declare that “All is bright round yon virgin mother and child,” and then address the Christ child: “Holy infant so tender and mild, sleep in heavenly peace.”

The fourth stanza especially requires attentiveness. We often sing it as if it’s about “radiant beams,” but that’s incorrect. Beams isn’t a noun here; it’s the sentence’s verb. Radiant actually modifies light in the previous line. Thus the sentence is a prayer, addressed to Jesus. In prose we would ordinarily say, “Son of God, love’s pure radiant light is beaming from your holy face.” But that doesn’t rhyme or scan. To make the rhyme and meter work, Young used the verb beams instead of is beaming. And he made radiant what’s called a postpositive adjective: it’s still modifying light, but it follows the word it’s modifying instead of preceding it. “Son of God, love’s pure light, radiant, beams from thy holy face.”

1. Silent Night! Holy Night!
All is calm. All is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child.
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.

2. Silent night! Holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight;
Glories stream from heaven afar.
Heavenly hosts sing “Alleluia!
Christ the Savior is born! Christ the Savior is born!”

3. Silent night! Holy night!
Wondrous star, lend thy light.
With the angels let us sing
Alleluias to our King.
Christ the Savior is born; Christ the Savior is born

4. Silent night! Holy Night!
Son of God, love’s pure light,
Radiant, beams from thy holy face,
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at thy birth; Jesus, Lord, at thy birth.

The Libera boy choir.