Come rejoicing, faithful men

Words: 11th Century or Earlier, from The English Hymnal, 1906

Music: Laetabundus
Meter: Irr.

1. Come rejoicing, faithful men,
with rapture singing Alleluia!
Monarch's Monarch.,
from a holy maiden spring,
mighty Wonder!

2. Angel of the counsel here,
Sun from star, he doth appear,
born of maiden:
He a sun who knows no night,
she a star whose paler light
fadeth never.

3. As a star its kindred ray,
Mary doth her Child display,
like in nature;
still undimmed he star shines on,
and the maiden bears a Son,
pure as ever.

4. Lebanon his cedar tall
to the hyssop on the wall
lowly bendeth;
from the highest, him we name
Word of God, to human frame
now descendeth.

5. Yet the synagogue denied
what Isaiah had descried:
blindness fell upon the guide,
proud, unheeding.
If her prophets speak in vain,
let her heed a gentile strain,
and, from mystic Sybil, gain
light and leading.

6. No longer then delay,
hear what the scriptures say,
why be cast away
a race forlorn?
Turn and this Child behold,
that very Son, of old
in God's writ foretold,
a maid hath borne.

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