This favour Christ vouchsafèd for our sake; To buy us thrones, He in a manger lay; Our weakness took, that we His strength might take; And was disrobed that He might us array; Our flesh He wore, Our sin to wear away; Our curse He bore, That we escape it may; And wept for us, that we might sing for aye. With angels therefore, sing again, To God on high all glory be, For peace on earth bestoweth He, And sheweth favour unto men. GILES FLETCHER 36. WHO CAN FORGET? Who can forget—never to be forgot— The time, that all the world in slumber lies, When, like the stars, the singing angels shot To earth, and heaven awakèd all his eyes To see another sun at midnight rise On earth? Was never sight of pareil fame, For God before man like Himself did frame, But God Himself now like a mortal man became. A Child He was, and had not learnt to speak, That with His word the world before did make; His mother’s arms Him bore, He was so weak, That with one hand the vaults of heaven could shake, See how small room my infant Lord doth take, Whom all the world is not enough to hold! Who of His years, or of His age hath told? Never such age so young, never a child so old. And yet but newly He was infanted, And yet already He was sought to die; Yet scarcely born, already banishèd; Not able yet to go, and forced to fly: But scarcely fled away, when by and by The tyrant’s sword with blood is all defiled, And Rachel, for her sons, with fury wild, Cries, ‘O thou cruel king, and O my sweetest child!’ Egypt His nurse became, where Nilus springs, Who, straight to entertain the rising sun, The hasty harvest in his bosom brings; But now for drought the fields were all undone, And now with waters all is overrun: So fast the Cynthian mountains poured their snow, When once they felt the sun so near them glow, That Nilus Egypt lost, and to a sea did grow. The angels carolled loud their song of peace; The cursèd oracles were strucken dumb; To see their Shepherd the poor shepherds press; To see their King the kingly sophies come; And them to guide unto his Master’s home, A star comes dancing up the orient, That springs for joy over the strawy tent, Where gold, to make their Prince a crown, they all present. GILES FLETCHER 37. A CHRISTMAS CAROL [Sung to the King in the Presence at Whitehall.] _Chorus._ 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. [From the flourish they come to the song.]