Our Patrick Henry Chorale did a Christmas program, a “Lessons & Carols” service, which consists of Bible readings interspersed with Christmas songs, held at the local Episcopal church. They did splendidly. One of their numbers was from Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, a musical version of Robert Southwell’s “This Little Babe.” Southwell was a 17th century metaphysical poet of the sort I specialize in, but I had forgotten this poem:
This little Babe so few days old is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak unarmèd wise the gates of hell he will surprise.With tears he fights and wins the field, his naked breast stands for a shield;
His battering shot are babish cries, his arrows looks of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns Cold and Need and feeble Flesh his warrior’s steed.