See amid the winter's snow
See amid the winter’s snow (NOBC 95) was written by Rev Edward Caswall in 1851 but not formally published until 1858 in a book of his poetry. Caswall (1814-1878) studied at Brasenose College, Oxford and became an Anglican priest in 1839, but was greatly influenced by John Henry Newman and the Oxford Movement, so much so that he converted to catholicism in 1847. But his wife Louisa sadly died of cholera in 1849 and soon afterwards Caswall decided to join the Oratory community in Birmingham, which had been newly established by Newman. He died at the Oratory nearly 30 years later.
See amid the winter’s snow was written, therefore, at a time of change and turbulence in his life. The overwhelming sentiments of the poem are of peace, calm, joy and tenderness:
Hail, thou ever blessed morn!
Hail, redemption’s happy dawn!
Sing through all Jerusalem,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.
Caswall’s poem was fitted with a tune composed by John Goss1 in 1871 and published in the same year in Bramley and Stainer’s Christmas Carols New and Old (Series Two). Stainer had been a pupil of Goss at the Royal Academy of Music.
1John Goss (1800-1880) was a composer, professor of harmony at the Royal Academy of Music and organist of St Paul’s cathedral. He was knighted in 1872 upon his retirement. His other well-known hymn is Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven.