Poet · Gilded Age
Phillips Brooks
American poet · 1835–1893
Phillips Brooks was the best-known American preacher of his generation, a Boston-born Episcopal clergyman who served as rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Philadelphia through the Civil War years and, from 1869, of Trinity Church in Boston.
On Christmas Eve 1865, travelling in the Holy Land, he rode out from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and worshipped in the Church of the Nativity. Three years later he wrote "O Little Town of Bethlehem" for the children of his Philadelphia Sunday school, and the church organist, Lewis Redner, set it to music for their Christmas service.
Brooks was elected Bishop of Massachusetts in 1891 and died in Boston in 1893. His sermons fill many volumes; the carol is the piece of his writing that lasted.
1 poem by Phillips Brooks
Full text, free to read. Each poem records its source and display decision.