Whereas Adam Caused By Sin

Words: English Traditional, Fifteenth Century
From MS. Landsdowne, 379, fol. 38.

Source: Edith Rickert, Ancient English Christmas Carols: 1400-1700 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914), pp. 168-9.

Tidings, tidings that be true:
Sorrow is past and joy doth renew

1. Whereas Adam caused by sin.
Our nature thus to be mortal,
    And that is true,
A maiden's Son doth now begin
For to repoise us from that fall,
  The name of Him is Christ Jesu.

2. Some of our kind hath had such grace
That since His birth they did Him see,
    And that is true, 
Both Son and mother, face to face,
In the chief city called Jewry:
    Both kings and shepherds, they it knew.

3. The prophets thereof were nothing dismayed
Of that tidings beforn that they had told,
    And that is true,
For now it is fallen right as they said:
A maiden clean a king hath born;
    For He is born to wear the purple hue.

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