The Portland daily press., 1873-12-24
Some Beautiful old Carols.

Shall keep his children every one.
-Aer York Independent
Some Beautiful old Carols.
BY REV. j. VILLA BLAKE.
1t is an annual delight to me, at Christmas
tide, to go back along our modern-paved high
way till find myself walking in earth-made
roads, understanding, by old pasture lands,
messy halls, and little hamlets, gay by reason
Of the simple folk turned out in holiday trim.
Thus CLEAN some handfuls of grain of an
tique favor from old English life. and most
delightfully."- from the sweetIand quaint carols
sung at this season by our English ancestors.
More pleasant indeed, it would be if my
search might be needless by reason of the
songs coming themselves in melodious ways
to my doors and windows. For even yet, no
doubt, one may hear these quaint ditties car
oiled during the twelve days of Christmas in
some parts of England Wordsworth writes
of the carol singers of his time:--
1.-THE MINISTRIES played their Christmas tune
Tonight beneath my cottage caves
Keen was the air but could not freeze
Nor check the music Of their strings;
SO stout ana hardy was the band
That scraped the chord with strenuous hand"
Brand mentions strange derivation for
the word Carol sit comes, they say. from
camtan' to sing, and rola, which is an inter-
lection of joy: for in ancient times the bur-
den of the song, when men were merry. was
rOla, rOla'' Better than this ingenious fan
cy, however, is the reference directly to the
domestic dance in old England called Scar
OLE" Thence carole became name for a
dance in general, and so also for the tune to
which it was performed; thence it was applied
to any merry tune, and so to festival songs.
Chappell, in his ''Music of the Olden Time"
4kor 81 +1,af 4,
fury passage about boys after they have at
tanned the age of seven years, that they are
then "plyaunt of body, able and lyghte to
moving, acyttu to lerne carolles etc )" il
which the writer may mean quick to learn to
dance or apt at warbling merry dance tunes
and other cheerful odies,-perhaps both !;
for, according to Chapel, the sense in which
the word twas most frequently used in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was to
sing or MARBLE to dancing"
The songs with which the people of s'Mer-
ry England" used to celebrate their Christ
mas, were sung by groups of carolists, includ-
ing children, out-ofdoors on Christmas eve
and Christmas morning, and at the different
festivities which filled up the time till Twelfth
Day. On Christmas day, in some places,
they were even sung instead of the usual
chanting or psalmody in the churches. For
this latter purpose the distinctly religious
carols were probably preferred; but the ex-
traOrdinary freedom of m anners, as it appears
to us, which the people of old England
brought into their churches, makes it very
not always eschewed. Here are couple of
stanzas, beautiful and picturesque, from re-
ligious carol of the sixteenth century, called
THE SHEPHERDS SONG.
Sweet music, sweeter far
Than any song is sweet,
Sweet music heavenly rare,
Mine ears, peers, doth greet
Yon gentle 1ocks--whose feeces, pearled with dew,
Resemble Heaven, whom golden drops make bright
Listen, o listen now! o not to you
Our pipes make sport to shorten weary night;
But voices most divine
Make bssful harmony
Voices that seem to shine;
For what else clears the sky?
Tunes can we hear, but not the singers see;
The tunes divine, and so the singers be.
Lo! how the armament
Within azure fold
The flock of stars hath pent,
That we might them behold.
Yet from their beams proceedeth not this light,
Nor can their crystals such reflection give;
What then doth make the element SO bright?
The heavens are come down upon earth to live.
But hearken to the song,-
Glory to glory's King,
And peace all men among,
These chorsters do sing
Angels they are as also, Shepherds He
Whom in our fear we do admire to see.
Gull two beautiful and melodious carols
of later date, by Robert Herrick The first
is entitled simply
A CHRISTMAS CAROL.
Chorus
What sweeter music can we bring
Than CAROL for to sing
The birth of this, our Heavenly King?
Awake the voice! awake tue string!
Heart, ear, and eye, and everything
Awake! the while the active finger
Rune uico pxx{tb he
Dark and dull night, fly hence away,
And give the honor to this day,
That sees December turned to May.
If we may ask the reason, say
The why, and wherefore all things here
Seem like the springtime of the year?
Why does the chilling winters mornl
Smile, like field beset with corn?
or smell, like TO mead new shorn,s
Thus, on the sudden? y
Come and see
The cause. why things thus fragrant be:
Gives life and lustre public m:rth,
To Heaven and the under Earth
Chorus.
We see Him come and know Him ours,
Who with His sunshine and His showers
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.
The Darling o: the world is come,
And fit it is we find room
To welcome Him.
Tho nobler part
or all the house here, is the heart.
Which we will give him. and bequeath
This holly and this ivy wreath,
10 do Him honor who's our King,
And Lord Of all this revealing.
The other carol, 10y Herrick, referred to, il
the following charming poem called
rTKE STAR SONG.
Tell us, thou clear and heavenly tongue,
Where Is the babe that lately sprung?
Lies he the ILL., banks among? e
Or say, if this new birth of ours
Sleeps, laid within some ark of flowers
Spangled with dewlight? thou canst clear
All doubts, and manifest the where.
Declare to US, bright Star, If we shall seek
HIM in the mornings blushing cheek