I'm Leaving Home Seeking My Fortune

For Christmas

Words: “Y m'en vai quitte,” Besançon Noël

Translation by Rev. J. O'Connor

Music: Besançon Noël

Source: Richard Runciman Terry, Two Hundred Folk Carols (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Limited, 1933), Carol #65, pp. 16-17.

1. I'm leaving home seeking my fortune,
The wars have it bare as a prison;
I'm making for Bethlehem;
Gossips are saying a Prince has arisen,
Much older than Methuselem,–
Right over near Jerusalem,
And there is peace,–
No plunderers poor men importuning.

2. The Lion has lost it in Judah:
Pray tell how the Lamb can recover:
The scepter is pass'd away;
Outcast is this One, no courtiers hover.
Impregnable Sion is tall
But old since David piled the wall:
Now scarce a day.
But looks on a foreign intruder.

3. This Babe on the bare earth was childed.
His touch makes the universe regal,
The whole starry wild's His home
Constellate panoplies order'd and legal
Are witness how soon Bethlehem
Shall raise a new Jerusalem:
Internal Rome
Is only her rumour in wildwood.

Sheet Music from  Richard Runciman Terry, Two Hundred Folk Carols (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne Limited, 1933), Carol #65, pp. 16-17.

Note by Rev. Terry / Rev. O'Connor:

The accentuation of the proper nouns in the original has been retained in the translation. [Ed.]

Editor's Note:

Yes, the word in Verse 1 is "Methuselem."

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