Nativity
(2007)
for unaccompanied choir (SATB)
text by John Donne
duration: 3 minutes
Commissioned by Choir & Organ magazine
Recorded by the choir of Westminster Abbey (James O’Donnell, conductor) for the Hyperion release “A Christmas Caroll from Westminster Abbey”
“The best newly recorded Christmas CD by a country mile…Terrific” (Mail on Sunday)
Published by Boosey & Hawkes
Nativity
John Donne (1572-1631)
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb
Now leaves His well-belov’d imprisonment,
There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough now into our world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?
Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
The effect of Herod’s jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith’s eyes, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.