Level: 2/3
Tuning: Standard

"It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" (1849), sometimes rendered as "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear", is a poem and Christmas carol written by Edmund Sears, pastor of the Unitarian Church in Wayland, Massachusetts. Sears' lyrics are most commonly set to "Noel", adapted by Arthur Sullivan from an English melody (in Commonwealth countries), or to "Carol", composed by Richard Storrs Willis (in the United States).

He wrote "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" while serving as a part-time preacher in Wayland. Writing during a period of personal melancholy, and with news of revolution in Europe and the United States' war with Mexico fresh in his mind, Sears portrayed the world as dark, full of "sin and strife", and not hearing the Christmas message.

John sets his arrangement in Standard tuning.