Before the marvel of this night
Before the marvel of this night. Jaroslav Vajda* (1919-2008).
Vajda wrote this poem on 1 January 1979, in response to a request for an Advent or Epiphany song. His submission appeared in the 1981 edition of Christmas: An American Annual of Christmas Literature and Art published by Augsburg, one of five chosen for the publication. Vajda notes: ‘One of the suggested themes was the angel song. But what could one possibly say in music that had not already been covered in the hundreds of extant Christmas carols and songs? I decided to conjecture how the hosts may have prepared and rehearsed that first Christmas song with a handful of shepherds as their audience’ (Vajda, 1987, p. 146) The poem...
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Chicago style (see The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Ed.)
. "Before the marvel of this night."
The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press, accessed January 23, 2026,
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/b/before-the-marvel-of-this-night.