Away In A Manger

Brandon Heath keeps this nineteenth-century lullaby's simple language fully intact, and the first verse stays entirely descriptive — "the stars in the sky looked down where He lay, the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay." Nothing about the scene is elaborate; it's a baby sleeping outdoors.

The second verse turns from watching the scene to speaking directly into it: "I love Thee, Lord Jesus, look down from the sky, and stay by my cradle till morning is nigh." The carol collapses the distance between the manger and whoever's singing it, as if the same child could watch over a modern child's own sleep.

Luke's account of Mary wrapping the baby in cloths and laying him in a manger because there was no room in the inn gives the carol its entire opening image, and the closing prayer — "take us to Heaven to live with Thee there" — turns a bedtime song into a request that outlasts childhood. It's an unusually small, quiet request for a carol to make, and it doesn't ask for anything bigger.