Author: Cecil Frances Alexander
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 Saviour holy.
3 And through all his perfect childhood
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 is 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.