Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895) was a prolific writer of hymns and religious poems, numbering nearly 400 in all. The larger part of her published work was songbooks for children, including Narrative Hymns for Village Schools and Hymns for Little Children, in which today’s carol was published. Among her other hymns that continue to be well-known today are “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” “Jesus Calls Us O’er the Tumult,” and “There is a Green Hill Far Away.”

Henry J. Gauntlett (1805-1876) became at age 9 the organist in his father’s church. He pursued a career in law, but in his late 30s left his practice to devote himself to music. He invented the first electrical mechanism for the organ, and was chosen by Mendelssohn to play the organ part in the premier of the Elijah in 1846. Gauntlett is credited with having written the music for 1000 hymns. These include alternate tunes for “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” and “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” These alternate tunes, and indeed most of Gauntlett’s pieces, have passed into obscurity; but “Once in Royal David’s City,” to Gauntlett’s tune Irby, is commonly sung as the processional hymn in a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.

The third stanza – not often sung – offers a nice window on Alexander’s aim to provide hymns that children would sing. Even for adults, it encourages us to recognize that Jesus knows our weakness and is present in all our circumstances. The fourth and fifth stanzas point us in hope toward the Second Advent, the triumphant return of Christ to set all things right.

1. Once in royal David’s city stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed:
Mary was that mother mild, Jesus Christ, her little child.

2. He came down to earth from heaven who is God and Lord of all;
And his shelter was a stable, and his cradle was a stall:
with the poor, and meek, and lowly lived on earth our Savior holy.

3. Jesus is our childhood’s pattern, day by day like us he grew;
He was little, weak, and helpless, tears and smiles like us he knew:
And he feels for all our sadness, and he shares in all our gladness.

4. And our eyes at last shall see him, through his own redeeming love,
For that child, so dear and gentle, is our Lord in heaven above:
And he leads his children on to the place where he has gone.

5. Not in that poor lowly stable with the oxen standing by
We shall see him, but in heaven, set at God’s right hand on high;
There his children gather round, bright like stars, with glory crowned.

This is the choir of King’s College, Cambridge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqHSjw4s3ag