If you’re anything like me, you’ve been listening to
Christmas music on the radio. And like me, you may wonder why, considering
there are dozens of wonderful Christmas songs out there, radio stations seem to play the
same 10 songs over and over—most notably Bing Crosby's "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas." The only relief is that they might play 2–5
versions of each of those 10.
Who better to give us a new carol or at least
different lyrics than British children’s poet and book writer Eleanor
Farjeon (1881–1965)? She wrote more than 30 books, opera librettos, plays, and masques.
“The Shepherd and the King” is from her book of Christmas poems, Come Christmas,
but I’m guessing it was first performed as a carol in one of her Christmas
masques. It is currently available as sheet music on the Internet.
In 1955 Farjeon won a Carnegie Medal for her story
collection, The Little Bookroom. (The Carnegie is the British equivalent to the
Newbery in the United States.) In 1956 she was the very first winner of the international
Hans Christian Andersen Award for her “lasting contribution to children’s
literature.”
Children’s literature people tend to talk about Farjeon's book Martin Pippin
in the Apple Orchard, but my favorites are two fairy tale retellings, both of
which started out as plays: The Glass Slipper (Cinderella) and The Silver
Curlew (Rumpelstiltskin plus a nursery rhyme, “The Man in the Moon”).
Eleanor Farjeon’s most famous work is actually a poem now familiar as
the song lyrics performed by Cat Stevens, “Morning Has Broken.” Today it
is often sung as a Christian hymn.
And so I give you a very Merry Christmas, with a little help
from Eleanor Farjeon!
The Shepherd and The King
The
Shepherd and the King,
The
Angel and the Ass,
They
heard Sweet Mary sing,
When
her joy was come to pass.
They
heard Sweet Mary sing
To
the Baby on her knee.
Sing
again Sweet Mary,
And
we will sing with thee!
Earth, bear a berry!
Heaven, bear a light!
Man, make you merry
On Christmas Night.
The
Oxen in the stall,
The
Sheep upon the hill,
They
are waking all
To
hear Sweet Mary still.
The
Baby is a Child,
And
the Child is running free.
Sing
again Sweet Mary,
And
we will sing with thee!
Earth, bear a berry!
Heaven, bear a light!
Man, make you merry
On Christmas Night.
The
People in the land,
So
many million strong,
All
silently do stand
To
hear Sweet Mary's song.
The
Child He is a man,
And
the man hangs on a tree.
Sing
again Sweet Mary,
And
we will sing with thee!
Earth, bear a berry!
Heaven, bear a light!
Man, make you merry
On Christmas Night.
The
Stars that are so old,
The
Grass that is so young,
They
listen in the cold
To
hear Sweet Mary's Tongue.
The
Man's the Son of God,
And
in heaven walketh He.
Sing
again Sweet Mary,
And
we will sing with thee!
Earth, bear a berry!
Heaven, bear a light!
Man, make you merry
On Christmas Night.
—Eleanor Farjeon, from Come Christmas (1927)
Note: Illustration is by French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau.
Note: Illustration is by French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau.
3 comments:
Beautiful! Thank you for sharing this!
Lovely. I have Children's Bells and some of my favorite poems are in there. I didn't know she had a Christmas collection! Another poet I always think is overlooked is Elizabeth Coatsworth. Except for a few titles in anthologies, most people aren't familiar with her.
Very nice. Thank you! I love the painting, too.
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