Lift Up Your Hearts And Be Ye Glad

For the New Year

Words: English Traditional from the Hill Ms.
Compare: Lift Up Your Heartes And Be Glad! (Rickert)
Lyft Vp Your Hartes & Be Glad (Flügel)

Music: Not Stated

Source: Jessie L. Weston, ed., Old English Carols from the Hill MS. [Balliol College MS. 354] Translated by Jessie L. Weston. (London: David Nutt, 1911), Carol # XXII, p. 41.

What cheer ? Good cheer, good cheer !
Be merry and glad this good New Year !

1. Lift up your hearts and be ye glad,
For at Christ's birth the Angel bade
Each say to the other if he be sad
            What cheer ? Good cheer !

2. Since the King of Heaven is born to-day,
Joy and mirth should we make alway,
And each, for His sake, to the other say
            What cheer ? Good cheer !

3. And here I tell ye, of heart so free,
Right welcome be one and all to me,
Be glad, and make merry for charitie
            What cheer ? Good cheer !

4. The goodman of this place to-day
That ye make merry he doth ye pray,
And with good heart unto all doth say

What cheer ? Good cheer, good cheer !
Be merry and glad this good New Year !

Editor's Note:

Weston's apparent source was Ewald Flügel, ed., “Liedersammlungen des XVI Jahrhunderts, Besonders Aus Der Zeit Heinrichs VIII. III. 6. Die lieder des Balliol Ms. 354,” in Eugen Einenkel, ed., Anglia - Zeitschrift für englische Philologie enthaltend Beitrage zur Geschlicht der englischen Sprache und Literatur. Band XXVI. (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1903), p. 242. This work is available at both Internet Archive and Google Books.

See also Roman Dyboski, ed. Songs, Carols and Other Miscellaneous Poems from the Balliol MS. 354, Richard Hill’s Commonplace Book. Early English Text Society Extra Series No. CI (London: Published for the Early English Text Society by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd., 1907, issued in 1908), p. 15. Over 103 songs of great variety, including 62 "sacred songs and carols." Available at Internet Archive and Google Books.

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