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John Byrom

1692 - 1763 Person Name: John C. Byrom Scripture: Luke 2:1-20 Author of "Christians, Awake, Salute the Happy Morn" in Psalter Hymnal (Blue) John Byrom was born in 1691, at Manchester, where his father was a linen-draper. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 1708; became a Fellow of the College in 1714; took his M.A. in 1716, and then proceeded to Montpelier, where he studied medicine. He afterwards abandoned medicine, settled in London, and obtained his living by teaching a system of shorthand, which he had projected. He was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1724. He died Sept. 28, 1763. The first edition of Byrom's poems appeared in 1773, in two volumes. A more complete edition was published in 1814. Byrom did not seek publicity as an author, but wrote verses only for recreation. --Annotations of the Hymnal, Charles Hutchins, M.A., 1872 ====================== Byrom, John, M.A., F.R.S., born at Manchester, Feb. 29,1691-2, baptized the same day, and educated at Merchant Taylors' School, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1712 ; M.A. 1715. He was elected a Fellow of his College in 1714. After studying medicine for a time at Montpellier, he returned to London, and earned his livelihood by teaching shorthand. Elected F.R.S. in 1724, and succeeded to the family estates about the same time. He died Sept. 28, 1763. His Poems were first published in 1773, in two volumes. In 1814 a more complete edition was issued by Nichols, of Leeds. From these Poems less than half a dozen hymns have come into common use. One of these, however, has a repu¬tation which has extended to all English-speaking countries. We refer to his "Christians, awake!" (q.v.). His hymn, "My spirit longeth for Thee," is also worthy of attention. -- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

John Wainwright

1723 - 1768 Person Name: John Wainright Scripture: Luke 2:1-20 Composer of "YORKSHIRE" in Psalter Hymnal (Blue) John Wainwright United Kingdom. He published a collection of Psalm tunes, anthems, chants, and hymns. A talented musician, the following year he was appointed organist and singer at Manchester Collegiate Church (later the Manchester Cathedral). His son, Robert, succeeded him as organist after he died. John Perry

John Barnard

b. 1948 Scripture: Luke 2:1-20 Arranger of "THE VIRGIN MARY" in The Faith We Sing

Jane M. Joseph

1894 - 1929 Person Name: Jane Marion Joseph Scripture: Luke 2 Translator of "On This Day Earth Shall Ring" in The Presbyterian Hymnal

Richard Wilbur

1921 - 2017 Scripture: Luke 2:7 Author of "A Stable Lamp Is Lighted" in Gather Comprehensive Richard Wilbur was born in New York City on March 1, 1921. He graduated with a B.A. from Amherst, where he was editor of the college newspaper, in 1942. Youthful engagements with leftist causes caught the attention of federal investigators when he was in training as a U.S. Army cryptographer, and he was demoted to a front-line infantry position where he saw action in the field in Italy, France and Germany. (When the cryptographer in Wilbur’s unit was killed, Wilbur also took over that function.) After demobilization, he continued his studies at Harvard where he obtained an M.A. in 1947, the year his first book was published. He was a member of the prestigious Harvard Fellows and taught there until 1954, when he moved to Wellesley and then to Wesleyan University. At Wesleyan he was instrumental in the founding of the acclaimed Wesleyan University Press poetry series that, from 1959 onward, featured new work by such important young poets as Robert Bly, James Wright, James Dickey, and Richard Howard, as well as such already-established writers as Louis Simpson and Barbara Howes. From Wesleyan he went to Smith as writer-in-residence. In 1987 he was named the second Poet Laureate of the U.S., following Robert Penn Warren. In the postwar years, when poets born between 1920 and 1935 often underwent dramatic changes in their writing styles, Wilbur remained someone who mastered a style early and continued to work within it. It is a style in a direct line of descent from Wallace Stevens: unabashedly rich in its diction, urbane in its metrical sophistication, and remarkably light-hearted and playful. His first and second books, The Beautiful Changes (1947) and Ceremony (1950), were influential volumes, and Wilbur was widely regarded in the 1950s as a poet no less important than Robert Lowell. His third collection, Things of This World (1956), was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Advice to a Prophet (1961) was followed by Walking to Sleep (1969), which was charlee.jpg (42846 bytes)awarded the Bollingen Prize. The Mind-Reader was published in 1976, and a New and Collected Poems in 1987 (with twenty-four new poems). "The typical ghastly poem of the fifties was a Wilbur poem not written by Wilbur," wrote Donald Hall in 1961, "a poem with tired wit and obvious comparisons and nothing to keep the mind or the ear occupied." Hall added presciently: "It wasn’t Wilbur’s fault, though I expect he will be asked to suffer for it." Wilbur’s poetry has not, as Hall predicted, retained the high value it had accrued in the postwar years. Although his fame as a translator has continued to grow – his blank verse rhymed-couplet versions of several plays by Moliere have received wide praise – his poetry is often cited as an example of the formalism and the apolitical timidity that is associated with the 1950s. "Wilbur is still admired," Robert von Hallberg notes in his contribution to the Cambridge History of American Literature (1996), "but really as the best poet of the 1950s." Even though he is an outstanding example, he excels in a debased category. Among minor poets he is allowed to be most major, but among major poets he is not even considered the most minor. A Wilbur poem reads so easily that it can dispel close scrutiny, as if the poem just as it is says all that needs to be said and withholds nothing. (As a result, Wilbur’s work has rarely attracted the attention of the skillful critic.) In fact, the smooth surface of the Wilbur poem can successfully distract us from recognizing how unusual and unexpected are the twists and leaps that structure the poem’s narrative. Many poems by Wilbur, while striking a superficial "balance," implicitly celebrate, while demonstrating, the virtues of a wit that is elaborately playful. --www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/wilbur/bio.htm He died on October 14, 2017, at a nursing home in Belmont, Massachusetts. --Wikipedia

Daniel Kantor

b. 1960 Person Name: Daniel Kantor, b. 1960 Scripture: Luke 2 Author of "Night of Silence" in Gather Comprehensive

Mary Louise Bringle

b. 1953 Person Name: Mary Louise Bringle, 1953- Scripture: Luke 2:1-7 Author of "As Joseph Lay in Troubled Sleep" in Community of Christ Sings

Reginald Heber

1783 - 1826 Person Name: Reginald Heber (1783-1826) Scripture: Luke 2:1-20 Author of "Brightest and Best" in Common Praise (1998) Reginald Heber was born in 1783 into a wealthy, educated family. He was a bright youth, translating a Latin classic into English verse by the time he was seven, entering Oxford at 17, and winning two awards for his poetry during his time there. After his graduation he became rector of his father's church in the village of Hodnet near Shrewsbury in the west of England where he remained for 16 years. He was appointed Bishop of Calcutta in 1823 and worked tirelessly for three years until the weather and travel took its toll on his health and he died of a stroke. Most of his 57 hymns, which include "Holy, Holy, Holy," are still in use today. -- Greg Scheer, 1995 ==================== Heber, Reginald, D.D. Born at Malpas, April 21, 1783, educated at Brasenose College, Oxford; Vicar of Hodnet, 1807; Bishop of Calcutta, 1823; died at Trichinopoly, India, April 3, 1826. The gift of versification shewed itself in Heber's childhood; and his Newdigate prize poem Palestine, which was read to Scott at breakfast in his rooms at Brazenose, Oxford, and owed one of its most striking passages to Scott's suggestion, is almost the only prize poem that has won a permanent place in poetical literature. His sixteen years at Hodnet, where he held a halfway position between a parson and a squire, were marked not only by his devoted care of his people, as a parish priest, but by literary work. He was the friend of Milman, Gifford, Southey, and others, in the world of letters, endeared to them by his candour, gentleness, "salient playfulness," as well as learning and culture. He was on the original staff of The Quarterly Review; Bampton Lecturer (1815); and Preacher at Lincoln's Inn (1822). His edition of Jeremy Taylor is still the classic edition. During this portion of his life he had often had a lurking fondness for India, had traced on the map Indian journeys, and had been tempted to wish himself Bishop of Calcutta. When he was forty years old the literary life was closed by his call to the Episcopate. No memory of Indian annals is holier than that of the three years of ceaseless travel, splendid administration, and saintly enthusiasm, of his tenure of the see of Calcutta. He ordained the first Christian native—Christian David. His first visitation ranged through Bengal, Bombay, and Ceylon; and at Delhi and Lucknow he was prostrated with fever. His second visitation took him through the scenes of Schwartz's labours in Madras Presidency to Trichinopoly, where on April 3,1826, he confirmed forty-two persons, and he was deeply moved by the impression of the struggling mission, so much so that “he showed no appearance of bodily exhaus¬tion." On his return from the service ”He retired into his own room, and according to his invariable custom, wrote on the back of the address on Confirmation 'Trichinopoly, April 3, 1826.' This was his last act, for immediately on taking off his clothes, he went into a large cold bath, where he had bathed the two preceding mornings, but which was now the destined agent of his removal to Paradise. Half an hour after, his servant, alarmed at his long absence, entered the room and found him a lifeless corpse." Life, &c, 1830, vol. ii. p. 437. Heber's hymns were all written during the Hodnet period. Even the great missionary hymn, "From Greenland's icy mountains," notwithstanding the Indian allusions ("India's coral strand," "Ceylon's isle"), was written before he received the offer of Calcutta. The touching funeral hymn, "Thou art gone to the grave," was written on the loss of his first babe, which was a deep grief to him. Some of the hymns were published (1811-16) in the Christian Observer, the rest were not published till after his death. They formed part of a ms. collection made for Hodnet (but not published), which contained, besides a few hymns from older and special sources, contributions by Milman. The first idea of the collection appears in a letter in 1809 asking for a copy of the Olney Hymns, which he "admired very much." The plan was to compose hymns connected with the Epistles and Gospels, to be sung after the Nicene Creed. He was the first to publish sermons on the Sunday services (1822), and a writer in The Guardian has pointed out that these efforts of Heber were the germs of the now familiar practice, developed through the Christian Year (perhaps following Ken's Hymns on the Festivals), and by Augustus Hare, of welding together sermon, hymnal, and liturgy. Heber tried to obtain from Archbishop Manners Sutton and the Bishop of London (1820) authorization of his ms. collection of hymns by the Church, enlarging on the "powerful engine" which hymns were among Dissenters, and the irregular use of them in the church, which it was impossible to suppress, and better to regulate. The authorization was not granted. The lyric spirit of Scott and Byron passed into our hymns in Heber's verse; imparting a fuller rhythm to the older measures, as illustrated by "Oh, Saviour, is Thy promise fled," or the martial hymn, "The Son of God goes forth to war;" pressing into sacred service the freer rhythms of contemporary poetry (e.g. "Brightest and best of the sons of the morning"; "God that madest earth and heaven"); and aiming at consistent grace of literary expression.. Their beauties and faults spring from this modern spirit. They have not the scriptural strength of our best early hymns, nor the dogmatic force of the best Latin ones. They are too flowing and florid, and the conditions of hymn composition are not sufficiently understood. But as pure and graceful devotional poetry, always true and reverent, they are an unfailing pleasure. The finest of them is that majestic anthem, founded on the rhythm of the English Bible, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty." The greatest evidence of Heber's popularity as a hymnwriter, and his refined taste as a compiler, is found in the fact that the total contents of his ms. collection which were given in his posthumous Hymns written and adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year. London, J. Murray, 1827; which included 57 hymns by Heber, 12 by Milman, and 29 by other writers, are in common in Great Britain and America at the present time. [Rev. H. Leigh Bennett, M.A.] Of Bishop Heber's hymns, about one half are annotated under their respective first lines. Those given below were published in Heber's posthumous Hymns, &c, 1827. Some of them are in extensive use in Great Britain and America; but as they possess no special histories they are grouped together as from the Hymns, &c, 1827:— 1. Beneath our feet, and o'er our head. Burial. 2. Creator of the rolling flood. St. Peter's Day, or, Gospel for 6th Sunday after Trinity. 3. Lo, the lilies of the field. Teachings of Nature: or, Gospel for 15th Sunday after Trinity. 4. 0 God, by Whom the seed is given. Sexagesima. 6. 0 God, my sins are manifold. Forgiveness, or, Gospel for 22nd S. after Trinity. 6. 0 hand of bounty, largely spread. Water into Wine, or, Gospel for 2nd S. after Epiphany. 7. 0 King of earth, and air, and sea. Feeding the Multitude; or, Gospel for 4th S. in Lent. 8. 0 more than merciful, Whose bounty gave. Good Friday. 9. 0 most merciful! 0 most bountiful. Introit Holy Communion. 10. 0 Thou, Whom neither time nor space. God unsearchable, or, Gospel for 5th Sunday in Lent. 11. 0 weep not o'er thy children's tomb. Innocents Day. 12. Room for the proud! Ye sons of clay. Dives and Lazarus, or, Gospel for 1st Sunday after Trinity. 13. Sit thou on my right hand, my Son, saith the Lord. Ascension. 14. Spirit of truth, on this thy day. Whit-Sunday. 15. The feeble pulse, the gasping breath. Burial, or, Gospel for 1st S. after Trinity. 16. The God of glory walks His round. Septuagesima, or, the Labourers in the Marketplace. 17. The sound of war in earth and air. Wrestling against Principalities and Powers, or, Epistle for 2lst Sunday after Trinity. 18. The world is grown old, her pleasures are past. Advent; or, Epistle for 4th Sunday in Advent. 19. There was joy in heaven. The Lost Sheep; or, Gospel for 3rd S. after Trinity. 20. Though sorrows rise and dangers roll. St. James's Day. 21. To conquer and to save, the Son of God. Christ the Conqueror. 22. Virgin-born, we bow before Thee. The Virgin Mary. Blessed amongst women, or, Gospel for 3rd S. in Lent. 23. Wake not, 0 mother, sounds of lamentation. Raising the Widow's Son, or, Gospel for 16th S. after Trinity. 24. When on her Maker's bosom. Holy Matrimony, or, Gospel for 2nd S. after Epiphany. 25. When through the torn sail the wild tempest is streaming. Stilling the Sea, or, Gospel for 4th Sunday after Epiphany. 26. Who yonder on the desert heath. The Good Samaritan, or, Gospel for 13th Sunday after Trinity. This list is a good index of the subjects treated of in those of Heber's hymns which are given under their first lines, and shows that he used the Gospels far more than the Epistles in his work. --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Richard Storrs Willis

1819 - 1900 Person Name: Richard Storrs Willis (1819-1900) Scripture: Luke 2:1-20 Composer of "CAROL" in Common Praise (1998) Richard Storrs Willis (February 10, 1819 – May 10, 1900) was an American composer, notably of hymn music. One of his hymns is "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" (1850), with lyrics by Edmund Sears. He was also a music critic and journal editor. Willis, whose siblings included Nathaniel Parker Willis and Fanny Fern, was born on February 10, 1819, in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended Chauncey Hall, the Boston Latin School, and Yale College where he was a member of Skull and Bones in 1841. Willis then went to Germany, where he studied six years under Xavier Schnyder and Moritz Hauptmann. While there, he became a personal friend of Felix Mendelssohn. After returning to America, Willis served as music critic for the New York Tribune, The Albion, and The Musical Times, for which he served as editor for a time. He joined the New-York American-Music Association, an organization which promoted the work native of naturalized American composers. He reviewed the organization's first concert for their second season, held December 30, 1856, in the Musical World, as a "creditable affair, all things considered". Willis began his own journal, Once a Month: A Paper of Society, Belles-Lettres and Art, and published its first issue in January 1862. Willis died on May 7, 1900. His interment was located at Woodlawn Cemetery. His works and music compilations include: Church Chorals and Choir Studies (1850) Our Church Music (1856) Waif of Song (1876) Pen and Lute (1883) --en.wikipedia.org