Words: Rev. John Mason Neale
Music: Aachen Gesangbuch
From Rev. Charles Lewis Hutchins, Carols Old and Carols New (Boston: Parish Choir, 1916), Carol #417
Music: Old Melody Harmonized by Michael Praetorius, 1610
Carol #681 from Hutchins
1. Young and old must raise the lay
That their heart engages;
For the child is born today,
Who is King of Ages:
For the God, by all adored,
Comes to His elected;
For the Babe, that is the Lord,
Comes to be rejected.
2. If the purple proves the King,
Where is goodly raiment?
If man needeth ransoming,
Who shall make the payment?
For the purple here is grass;
For the throne, the manger;
For the courtiers, ox and ass,
Kneel before the Stranger
3. Joshua hastes to meet the foes,
Boastful and defiant;
David to His breathren goes,
And shall slay the giant;
Help is nigh to change our fate,
Help we may rely on:
Solomon, with royal state,
Shall be crown'd in Gihon. [1]
4. Through the desert as we go,
Sorrowful and fearing,
From the Rock the waters flow,
That shall work our cheering:
Manna, wherewith all are fed,
Comes for our salvation,
Born in Bethlehem, House of Bread
By interpretation.
5. Young and old must raise the lay
That their heart engages:
For the Child is born today,
Who is King of Ages:
Young and old their deeds so frame,
That, as He came hither,
They, when he their lives shall claim,
May to Him go thither.
Sheet Music from Charles L. Hutchins, #417
MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF
Sheet Music from Charles L. Hutchins, #681
MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF
Sheet Music from George Ratcliffe Woodward, The Cowley Carol Book, First Series (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd., 1902, Revised and Expanded Edition 1929), Carol #15
MIDI / Noteworthy Composer / PDF
Note: Carol 417 contains five verses with 8 lines each. Carol 681 contains eight verses with 4 lines each, and omits verse three above.
1. Gihon is the name of a noted spring near Jerusalem. Solomon was anointed there to succeed David. Return
