The shepherds at these tidings.
Rejoiced much in mind,
And left their flocks a feeding,

In tempest, storm and wind,

And went to Bethlehem straightway,

This blessed babe to find.

O tidings of comfort and joy,

For Jesus Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas Day.

But when to Bethlehem they came,

Where as this infant lay,
They found him in a manger

Where oxen feed on hay,

His mother Mary kneeling,

Unto the Lord did pray.

O tidings of comfort and joy,

For Jesus Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas Day.

Now to the Lord sing praises,

All you within this place,

And with true love and brotherhood

Each other now embrace.

This holy tide of Christmas

All others doth deface.

O tidings of comfort and joy,

For Jesus Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas Day.

Old Carol.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL,

SUNG TO KING CHARLES I. AT WHITEHALL.

CHORUS.

WHAT Sweeter music can we bring
Than a carol, for to sing

The birth of this our Heavenly King?
Awake the voice! awake the string!
Heart, ear, and eye, and everything,
Awake! the while the active finger
Runs division with the singer.

I.

Dark and dull night, fly hence away,
And give the honour to this day,
That sees December turned to May.

II.

If we may ask the reason, say

The why and wherefore all things here
Seem like the spring-time of the year?

III.

Why does the chilling winter's morn

Smile like a field beset with corn?
Or smell like to a mead new shorn,
Thus on the sudden?

IV.

Come and see

The cause why things thus fragrant be:
'Tis He is born, whose quickening birth
Gives life and lustre, public mirth,

To Heaven and the under Earth.

CHORUS.

We see Him come, and know Him ours,
Who with His sunshine and His showers,
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.

I.

The Darling of the world is come,

And fit it is we find a room

To welcome Him.

II.

The nobler part

Of all the house here, is the heart.

CHORUS.

Which we will give Him; and bequeath

This holly and this ivy wreath,

To do Him honour who's our King,

And Lord of all this revelling.

Robert Herrick.

WOULD that our scrupulous sires had dared to leave
Less scanty measure of those graceful rites
And usages, whose due return invites

A stir of mind too natural to deceive;

Giving the memory help when she could weave

A crown for Hope!-I dread the boasted lights That all too often are but fiery blights,

Killing the bud o'er which in vain we grieve.

1

Go, seek, when Christmas snows discomfort bring,
The counter-spirit found in some gay church
Green with fresh holly, every pew a perch
In which the linnet or the thrush might sing,
Merry and loud, and safe from prying search,
Strains offered only to the genial spring.

William Wordsworth.

How many hearts are happy at this hour
In England! Brightly o'er the cheerful hall

Flares the heaped hearth, and friends and kindred meet,
And the glad mother round her festive board

Beholds her children, separated long

Amid the wide world's ways, assembled now,
A sight at which affection lightens up

With smiles the eye that age has long bedimmed.
I do remember when I was a child

How my young heart, a stranger then to care,
With transport leaped upon this holy day,
As o'er the house, all gay with evergreens,
From friend to friend with joyful speed I ran,
Bidding a merry Christmas to them all.

Robert Southey.