(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.