When Jesus Christ Was Yet A Child

Alternate Titles:
Tschaikowsky's Legend
The Crown of Roses

Words: From The Russian, without named attribution of translation from Hutchins.
Shaw and Percy Dearmer give translation credit to Geoffrey Dearmer

Music: P. Tschaikowsky
MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF

Carol 575, Rev. Charles Lewis Hutchins, Carols Old and Carols New
(Boston: Parish Choir, 1916)

1. When Jesus Christ was yet a child,
He had a garden small and wild,
Wherein He cherished roses fair,
And wove them into garlands there.

2. Now once, as summer time drew nigh,
There came a troop of children by,
And seeing roses on the tree,
With shouts they pluck'd them merrily.

3. “Do you bind roses in your hair?”
They cried, in scorn, to Jesus there.
The Boy said humbly: “Take, I pray,
All but the naked thorns away.”

4. Then of the thorns they made a crown,
And with rough fingers press'd it down,
Till on his forehead fair and young,
Red drops of blood, like roses sprung.

Sheet Music by P. Tschaikowsky from Rev. Charles L. Hutchins, Carols Old and Carols New
(Boston: Parish Choir, 1916), Carol 575
MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF

Sheet Music by P. Tschaikowsky from Martin Shaw and Percy Dearmer, The English Carol Book, First Series (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd., 1913), Carol #21

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