As I me ros in on morwenyng
For Christmas
Words and
Music: English Traditional
Compare:
As I Up
Ros In A Mornyng (Wright, 1847)
Mother,
White As Lily Flower (Edith Rickert)
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Source: Thomas Wright, Songs and Carols from a Manuscript in the British Museum of the Fifteenth Century (London: Printed by Richards for The Warton Club, 1856), Hymn XXXVIII, pp. 48-49.
Moder, qwyt as lylie flour,
ȝour lullyng lassyt myn longour.
As I me ros in on morwenyng,
Myn thowt was on a mayde ȝynge,
Che song aslepe with here lullynge
Here dere sone, our Savyour.
As che hym tok al in here lap,
He tok that maydyn be the pap,
And tok therof a ryȝt god nap
And sok his fille of that licour.
To his moder than he gan say,
" For this mylk me muste day,
It is myn kynde therwith to play,
My swete moder, myn paramour."
That mayde frely began to synge,
And in here song che mad murnynge,
That here sone, that is our kynge,
Xuld schred his blod with gret dolour.
"ȝour wepyng, moder, grevit me sore,
But I wold deye, ȝe wern forlore ;
Do wey, moder, and wepe non more ;
ȝour lullyng lassit myn langour."
Note from Edith Rickert, Ancient English Christmas Carols: 1400-1700 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914), page 152:
"This carol shows in about its simplest form the extension of the episode in which the Child replies. In some of the sixteenth-century carols it grows into a long prophetic narrative of Christ's life and death uttered by Himself in the cradle, usually combined with a lullaby refrain."
Note from Thomas Wright, Songs and Carols Now First Printed, From a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (London: The Percy Society, 1847), Song #46:
This song also is in the Sloane MS., fol. 16, v0.
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