Carol for Christmas Eve

Alternative Titles: Listen, Lordings, Unto Me and Listen, Lordlings, Unto Me

Words: Rev. H. R. Bramley

Music: Sir F. A. G. Ouseley

Compare: Listen, Lordings, Unto Me
Listeneth, lordings, both great and small

Source: Henry Ramsden Bramley and John Stainer, Christmas Carols New and Old, First Series (London: Novello, Ewer & Co., 1871), Carol #18

1. Listen, Lordings, unto me, a tale I will you tell;
Which, as on this night of glee, in David’s town befel.
Joseph came from Nazareth, with Mary that sweet maid:
Weary were they, nigh to death; and for a lodging pray’d

Chorus
Sing high, sing high, sing low, sing low,
Sing high, sing low, sing to and fro.
Go tell it out with speed,
Cry out and shout all round that,
That Christ is born indeed.

2. In the Inn they found no room; a scanty bed they made:
Soon a Babe from Mary’s womb was in the manger laid.
Forth He came as light through glass: He came to save us all.
In the stable ox and ass before their Maker fall. Chorus

3. Shepherds lay afield that night, to keep the silly sheep,
Hosts of Angels in their sight came down from heaven’s high steep.
Tidings! Tidings! Unto you: to you a Child is born,
Purer than the drops of dew, and brighter than the morn. Chorus

4. Onward then the Angels speed, the shepherds onward went,
God was in His manger bed, in worship low they bent.
In the morning see ye mind, my masters one and all,
At the Alter Him to find, who lay within the stall. Chorus

Sheet Music from Henry Ramsden Bramley and John Stainer, Christmas Carols New and Old (London: Novello, Ewer & Co., ca 1871)

Sheet Music from George Ratcliffe Woodward, The Cowley Carol Book, Second Series (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd., ca. 1919), Carol #89

 

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