Somebody Else's Thoughts, No. 5

What sweeter music can we bring, 

Than a Carol, for to sing 
The Birth of this our heavenly King? 
Awake the Voice! Awake the String! 
Heart, Ear, and Eye, and every thing 
Awake! the while the active Finger
Runs division with the Singer.

Dark and dull night, fly hence away,

And give the honour 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 Spring-time of the year?

Why does chilling Winters morn

Smile like a field beset with corn?

Or smell like to a Mead new-shorn,

Thus, on the sudden? Come and see

The cause, why things thus fragrant be:

Tis He is born, whose quickening birth

Gives life and luster, public mirth,

To Heaven and the under-Earth.

We see him come and know him ours,

Who, with his sunshine and his showers

Turns all the patient ground to flowers.

The darling of the world is come

And fit it is, we find a room

To welcome him. The nobler part

Of all the house here, is the heart.

Which we will give him, and bequeath

The Holly, and this Ivy wreath,

To do him honour, who's our King,

And Lord of all this revelling.

Robert Herrick

A Christmas Carol, Sung to the King in the Presence at White-Hall