The Hymns and Carols of Christmas

Behold A Silly Tender Babe

Alternate Title: New Prince, New Pomp

For Christmas

Words: Saint Robert Southwell, S.J., 1561-1595

Music: C. Steggall, Mus. Doc.
MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF
(Verse 1 Only)

Source: Joshua Sylvester, A Garland of Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern (London: John Camden Hotten, 1861), pp. 87-88.

1. Behold a silly1 tender babe,
In freezing winter night,
In homely manger trembling lies:
Alas! A piteous sight.

2. The inns are full; no man will yield
This little Pilgrim bed;
But forced He is with silly beasts
In crib to shroud his head. 

3. Despise Him not for lying there;
First what He is inquire:
And orient pearl is often found
In depth of dirty mire. 

4. Weigh not His crib, His wooden dish,
Nor beasts that by Him feed;
Weigh not His Mother's poor attire,
Nor Joseph's simple weed.2 

5. This stable is a Prince's Court,
The crib His chair of state,
The beasts are parcel on His pomp,
The wooden dish His plate; 

6. The persons in that poor attire
His royal liveries wear;
The Prince Himself is come from heaven,
This pomp is prized there. 

7. With joy approach, O Christian wight,3
Do homage to thy King;
And highly praise His humble pomp,
Which He from heaven doth bring.'

Notes:

1. According to Sylvester, the word "silly" frequently occurs in ancient carols. It meant in those days artless, simple. Return

2. According to Bullen, weed = dress. Return

3. Or soul. Return

Also found in Richard R. Terry, Old Christmas Carols. Part One. (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Limited, n.d., ca. 1923), #5, p. 8, with these differences:

4. Weigh not His crib, His wooden dish,
Nor beasts that round Him press;
Weigh not His Mother's poor attire,
Nor Joseph's simple dress.

5. This stable is a Prince's Court,
The crib His chair of state,
The beasts are parcel of His pomp,
The wooden dish His plate; 

Sheet Music from Henry Ramsden Bramley and John Stainer, Christmas Carols New and Old (London: Novello, Ewer & Co., ca 1878).

New_Prince_New_Pomp_47a.gif (232665 bytes) New_Prince_New_Pomp_47b.gif (270851 bytes) New_Prince_New_Pomp_47c.gif (357535 bytes) New_Prince_New_Pomp_47d.gif (405192 bytes)

Sheet Music by John Ireland from Martin Shaw and Percy Dearmer, The English Carol Book, Second Series (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd., 1913), Carol #46
MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF

Sheet Music, We are poor frozen-out gardeners, from Charles Wood and George Ratcliffe Woodward, The Cambridge Carol-Book, Being Fifty-Two Songs For Christmas, Easter, And Other Seasons (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1924), #5
MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF

Sheet Music “The Foggy Dew,” Irish Folk-melody, collected by Mrs. C. Milligan Fox, from Richard R. Terry, Old Christmas Carols. Part One. (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Limited, n.d., ca. 1923), #5, p. 8.

Sheet Music from Richard Runciman Terry, Old Christmas Carols. Part One. (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Limited, n.d., ca. 1923), #5, p. 8.

Note from Joshua Sylvester:

Robert Southwell, the writer of the following poem, is chiefly remembered on account of his unfortunate fate. He was educated for the Catholic priesthood, and when young became a member of the Society of Jesus at Rome. After a time, he returned to his own country in the character of a missionary. But he found the government adverse to his Order. For eight years he managed to escape the particular notice of the authorities, but at length he was arrested, and thrown into prison, where he endured the torture of the rack ten times. Eventually he was executed at Tyburn, February 21, 1595.

Links open in an external site, The Catholic Encyclopedia.

Note: Hugh Keyte, an editor of The New Oxford Book of Carols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992) believes that "Joshua Sylvestre" is a pseudonym for a collaboration between William Sandys (1792-1874) and William Henry Husk (1814-1887). See Appendix 4.

Also found in Edith Rickert, Ancient English Christmas Carols: 1400-1700 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914), p. 271.

Also found in Christmas: Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse - Robert Haven Schauffler (1907).

Also found in Alexander Balloch Grossart, ed., The Complete Poems of Robert Southwell: For the First Time Fully Collected and Collated with the Original and Early Editions and Mss. (Printed for Private Circulation in London: Robbon and Sons, Printers, 1872), pp. 107-108. Reprinted as Volume 30 of Fuller Worthies' Library.

NEW PRINCE, NEW POMPE.

Behould a sely tender Babe,
In freesing winter nighte,'
In homely manger trembling lies;
Alas, a pitious sighte!

The inns are full, no man will yelde
This little pilgrime bedd;
But forc'd He is with sely beastes
In cribb to shroude His headd.

Despise not Him for lyinge there,
First what He is enquire;
An orient peile is often founde
In depth of dirty mire.

Waye not His cribb, His wodden dishe,
Nor beastes that by Him feede;
Way not His mother's poore attire,
Nor Josephe's simple weede.

This stable is a Prince's courte,
The cribb His chaire of State;
The beastes are parcell of His pompe,
The wodden dishe His plate.

The parsons in that poore attire
His royall liveries weare;
The Prince Himself is come from heaven,
This pompe is prised there.

With joy approch, O Christian wighte!
Do homage to thy Kinge;
And highly prise His humble pompe
Which He from heaven doth bringe.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

Line 9, 1596 reads ' Despise Him not:' line 24, Turnbull misprints 'praised' for 'prized:' line 27, Turnbull, after 1630 and 1634, misprints 'praise' for 'prise.' I read 'His' for 'this;' a frequent misprint.

On 'silly' (line 1) see relative note onward, on 'I die without dessert' (line 4). G. [Grossart]

Editor's Note:

The reference to "Turnbull" is to William B. Turnbull, ed., The Poetical Works of the Rev. Robert Southwell, Now First Completely Edited (London: John Russell Smith, 1856), pp. 98-99.

Also found in Martin Shaw and Percy Dearmer, The English Carol Book, Second Series (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd., 1919), Carol #46, where this song is treated as a seven verse carol, with burden:

Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, sing we with mirth!
Christ is come well, with us to dwell,
    By his most noble birth.

Behold a simple, tender Babe,
    In freezing winter night,
In homely manger trembling lies;
    Alas! a piteous sight.

The inns are full; no man will yield
    This little Pilgrim bed;
But forced he is with silly beasts
    In crib to shroud his head.

Despise him not for lying there;
    First what he is inquire:
An Orient pearl is often found
    In depth of dirty mire.

Weigh not his crib, his wooden dish,
    Nor beasts that by him feed;
Weigh not his mother's poor attire,
    Nor Joseph's simple weed.

This stable is a Prince's court,
    The crib his chair of state;
The beasts are parcel of his pomp,
    The wooden dish his plate.

The persons in that poor attire
    His royal liveries wear;
The Prince himself is come from heaven:
    This pomp is praisèd there.

With joy approach, O Christian wight!
    Do homage to thy King;
And highly praise this humble pomp,
    Which he from heaven doth bring.

Also found in A. H. Bullen, A Christmas Garland (London: John C. Nimmo, 1885), pp. 111-2. At page 259, Bullen first quotes New Heaven, New War, which, he observed "is perhaps almost too quaint for modern readers; yet I venture to quote it in full." He then also reproduced “The Burning Babe,” and then continued:

"Ben Jonson told Drummond of Hawthornden that he would have been content to destroy many of his own writings if he had written “The Burning Babe.”

"Southwell’s longest poem, “St. Peter’s Complaint,” is smoothly written, but tedious. After three years’ close imprisonment in the Tower, Southwell was executed at Tyburn, on February 22, 5594—5, at the age of thirty-four or thirty-five. Though he was found guilty of treasonable practices, his sole offence was that he had been a zealous priest of the Church of Rome. He appears to have been a man of noble character, humble and gentle and intrepid. [In the last line of the penultimate stanza of “New Prince, New Pomp,” the word praisèd should be prizèd. I quoted from an inaccurate reprint.]"

Bullen reproduced this illustration by Henry G. Wells, inspired by a portion of the first verse.

"The inns are full, no man will yield
This little pilgrim bed;
But forced he is with silly beasts
In crib to shroud his head."

Editor's Note: The following note is from William Chappell, The Ballad Literature and Popular Music of the Olden Time. London: Chappell & Co., 1859, pp. 747-8 concerning the tune "We Are Poor Frozen Out Gardeners."

"This is the tune of many songs. If the reader should meet any half a-dozen men perambulating the streets of London together, and singing, the probabilities are great that they sing to this tune. Sometimes the men are dressed like sailors; at other times they look like workmen out of employment. I recollect hearing the tune at Kilburn, full forty years ago, and have, with tolerable annual regularity, ever since. I regret never having stopped to hear the words."

Other Marion and Christmas-tide poems / carols by Robert Southwell, and the page numbers that those poems begin on, include:

All of these can be found in The Complete Poems of Robert Southwell (1872), available at both Google Books and, in multiple formats, the Internet Archive.

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