This Day Christ Was Born
A Carol For Christmas Day
Words and Music: Unknown
Source: William Henry Husk, Songs of the Nativity (London: John Camden Hotten, 1868)
This day Christ was born,
This day our Saviour did appear,
This day the Angels sing in earth,
The Archangels are glad;
This day the just rejoice, saying,
Glory be to God on high.
Allelujah!
Husk's Note:
This appears, under the above name [A Carol For Christmas Day], in William Byrd's "Psalmes, Songs, and Sonnets: some solemne, others joyfull, framed to the life of the Words: Fit for Voyces or Viols of 3, 4, 5, and 6, parts," printed at London in 1611, and a copy of which, (whence the present carol has been derived) in the library of the Sacred Harmonic Society. It has not been included in any collection of carols, and is here given only as a singular specimen of a carol not in rhymed verse.
Also found in Edith Rickert, Ancient English Christmas Carols: 1400-1700 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914), p. 212. Rickert also cites Byrd's Psalms, Songs, and Sonnets.
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