The Star Song: A Caroll To The King, Sung At White-Hall

Words: Robert Herrick

Source: Robert Herrick, Hesperides, Or, The Works Both Humane and Divine of Robert Herrick. (Houghton, Mifflin, 1854), pp. 244-245.

The flourish of musick: then followed the Song.

1 Tell us, thou cleere and heavenly Tongue,
Where is the Babe but lately sprung?
Lies he the lillie-banks among?

2 Or say if this new Birth of ours
Sleeps, laid within some ark of flowers,
Spangled with deaw-light? Thou canst cleere
All doubts and manifest the where.

3 Declare to us, bright Star, if we shall seek
Him in the mornings blushing cheek,
Or search the beds of spices through,
To find him out?

Star. No, this ye need not do:
But onely come, and see him rest
A princely Babe in's mothers brest.

Chor. He's seen! he's seen! Why then a round,
Let's kisse the sweet and holy ground,
And all rejoyce that we have found
A King, before conception crown'd.

4 Come then, come then, and let us bring
Unto our prettie Twelfth-Tide King
Each one his severall offering.

Chor. And when night comes, ,wee'l give him wassailing;
And that his treble honours may be seen.
Wee'l chuse him King, and make his mother queen.

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