Bethlehem

For Christmas

Words: Dans cette etable from Dictionnaire de Noëls.

Words translated from Fléchier by the Rev. John O'Connor.

Music: Popular French Noël from Dictionnaire de Noëls.

Source: Richard Runciman Terry, Two Hundred Folk Carols (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Limited, 1933), Carol #56, pp. 34-35.

1. Jesus in Stable!
What music may profess
How amiable
How lost in lowliness?
All winsomeness in small,
And not a palace Hall
Has beauties comparable
     With any that befall
In yonder stable.

2. How well His power
Is manifest this morn
Though but an hour
Is gone since he was born!
Go free the captive may,
And Hell is brought to bay
Or ere the snowdrop flower
     As manifest as day
Appears His power.

3. If He has feeling
'Tis all for our distress,
The cold congealing
Makes not His heaviness.
His favors o'er and o'er
Invite that all our store
To Love so self revealing
     We yield for ever more
If we have feeling.

4. Oh! happy wonder!
Christ Jesus by His pain
Dissolves the thunder
Of wrath to sunlit rain.
To save the sinful Soul
He comes in utter dole,
And Majesty goes under
     To love beyond control
Oh! happy wonder!

5. We love Thee dearly
Can any see Thy face
And not sincerely
Beseech Thy tender grace?
O Lord of angel-choirs
Inflame us with the fires
Consuming Thee so nearly.
     Thou crown of our desires
We love Thee dearly.

Sheet Music from Richard Runciman Terry, Two Hundred Folk Carols (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Limited, 1933), Carol #56, pp. 34-35.

Note by Rev. Terry:

Throughout France this melody is sung in Common Time, but Gounod's version in Six-eight Time has enjoyed (in this country) so long and unchallenged a vogue that it is here retained [Ed.]

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