In 1969 when I was in UCC I was asked to select and recite some Christmas prose and poetry for a Christmas concert being held in the Aula Maxima.
I chose something out of Dickens; of course, and a TS Eliot poem about the Coming of the Magi, I remember a line:
A hard coming we had
And a harder going.
And then I was delighted to find ( I think in Palgraves Golden Treasury) the words of a particularly simple and charming Medieval English Carol which I quote below.
I remember quoting it off to my friend Jim Flanagan who also liked it.
As he was also to perform at the concert, in his case singing Christmas songs, he decided to set the carol to a simple folk tune and sing it at the concert also.
Last week listening to a Carol Concert sung by the National Chamber Choir I heard Benjamin Brittan’s version of the same song.
Personally I preferred Jim’s.
Here are the words:
I sing of a maiden
that makeles is
King of all kings
to her son she ches.
He came all so still
where his mother was,
As dew in April
that falleth on the grass.
He came all so still
to his mother’s bow’r,
As dew in April
that falleth on the flow’r.
He came all so still
where his mother lay,
As dew in April
that falleth on the spray.
Mother and maiden
was never none but she.
Well may such a lady
Goddès mother be.
Comments
The comments are closed.