When Christ Was Born
SATB, solo, and organ. Wonderful English irregular-meter verse. Text by Michael Gailey and Hugh Lambert.
When Christ was born in Bethlehem upon a Christmas Day,
the shepherds came to worship him who lay amid the hay.
They heard the choirs of angels sing to welcome in the morn;
When in an ox's stall, the Saviour of mankind was born.
A lowly stable there was all that men would them afford,
Yet ox and ass their maker knew, and guarded well their Lord.
They stood around the humble crib, and watched the new-born King;
The Prince of Peace, whose praise still makes the courts of heaven ring.
So now at this, our festal time, let us our voices raise
to celebrate the holy Birth with hymns of thankful praise.
We worship him in songs of joy, with angel hosts above,
who came to ransom lost mankind with his redeeming love.