Canzoni di Natale dell’Ottocento

Risalgono all’Ottocento addirittura i pezzi di cui vi riportiamo i testi. C’è un qualcosa di romantico a pensare a come potevano trascorrerlo in quel secolo il Natale, senza il consumismo di adesso e la vita così frenetica. Voi che ne pensate?

It’ s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

James Pierpont. publ.1857

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Ev’rywhere you go;

Take a look in the five-and-ten, glistening once again

With candy canes and silver lanes aglow.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,

Toys in ev’ry store,

But the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be

On your own front door.

A pair of hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots

Is the wish of Barney and Ben;

Dolls that will talk and will go for a walk

Is the hope of Janice and Jen;

And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Ev’rywhere you go;

There’s a tree in the Grand Hotel, one in the park as well,

The sturdy kind that doesn’t mind the snow.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas;

Soon the bells will start,

And the thing that will make them ring is the carol that you sing

Right within your heart.

It Came Upon The Midnight Clear

James Pierpont. publ.1857

It came upon the midnight clear,

That glorious song of old,

From angels bending near the earth

To touch their harps of gold!

“Peace on the earth, good will to men,

From heaven’s all gracious King!

The world in solemn stillness lay

To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come

With peaceful wings unfurled

And still their heavenly music floats

O’er all the weary world;

Above its sad and lowly plains

They bend on hovering wing.

And ever o’er its Babel sounds

The blessed angels sing.

Yet with te woes of sin and strife

The world hath suffered long;

Beneath the angel-strain have rolled

Two thousand years of wrong;

And man, at war with man, hears not

The love song which they bring:

O hush the noise, ye men of strife,

And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,

By prophet bards foretold,

When, with the ever-circling years,

Shall come the Age of Gold;

When peace shall over all the earth

Its ancient splendors fling,

And all the world give back the song

Which now the angels sing.