Once in Royal David's City

Cecil Frances Humphreys (1818-1895) was born in Dublin in Ireland and began writing verse while still in her childhood. By the 1840s, she was already known as a hymn writer and her compositions were soon included in the hymnbooks of the Church of Ireland. In addition to her hymns, she also contributed lyric poems, narrative poems and translations of French poetry to Dublin University Magazine under various pseudonyms.

Cecil’s most famous collection was published in 1848, entitled Hymns for Little Children. The following year, Henry John Gauntlett discovered one of Cecil’s texts from the collection and set it to music. The hymn was about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, which was also the birth town of His ancestor, King David. The hymn is called "Once in Royal David’s City".

In 1850, the year after Gauntlett paired words with music, Cecil married Anglican clergyman William Alexander, who would later become Bishop of Derry and Archbishop of Amagh. Mrs. Cecil Frances Humphreys Alexander embraced her duties seriously as a bishop’s wife. But never turned from her love of writing poems and hymns—there are over four hundred hymns to her credit.

Since 1918, King's College, Cambridge has annually presented on Christmas Eve a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, which, through the reading of Bible passages and the singing of hymns and carols, celebrates the birth of Jesus. Since the festival’s beginning, "Once in Royal David’s City" has had the distinction of being played as the festival's processional hymn.

Once in Royal David's City
Cecil F. Alexander, Hymns for Little Children, 1848.

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.

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 mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Savior holy.

And, through all His wondrous childhood,
He would honor and obey,
Love and watch the lowly maiden,
In whose gentle arms He lay:
Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.

For He is our childhood’s pattern;
Day by day, like us He grew;
He was little, weak and helpless,
Tears and smiles like us He knew;
And He feeleth for our sadness,
And He shareth in our gladness.

And our eyes at last shall see Him,
Through His own redeeming love,
For that Child so dear and gentle
Is our Lord in Heav’n above,
And He leads His children on
To the place where He is gone.

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;
Where like stars His children crowned
All in white shall wait around.

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