I blogged this couple of years ago when it was added as a new song (!) to OCP’s Breaking Bread. It makes some sense in North America, but it shows how perverse we are in Australia that we could even imagine singing this song at a scorching summer Christmas liturgy dripping in sweat.
The tune, ROSETTI (aka CRANHAM), by Gustav Holst is, of course, absolutely fine. The text by Christina Rosetti has nothing do with the sitz im leben of the the Middle East Christmas Story but everything to do with miserable Victorian era winters in England. It is nonetheless, a moving poem.
I quite like the backing I made last time but did a fake BIAB organ one this time:
1 In the bleak midwinter
frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone;
snow had fallen,
snow on snow, snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter,
long ago.2 Our God, heav’n cannot hold him
nor earth sustain;
heav’n and earth shall flee away
when he comes to reign:
in the bleak midwinter
a stable place sufficed
the Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.3 Enough for him whom cherubim
worship night and day,
a breastful of milk,
and a mangerful of hay;
enough for him,
whom angels fall down before,
the ox and ass and camel
which adore.4 Angels and archangels
may have gathered there,
cherubim and seraphim
thronged the air:
but only his mother
in her maiden bliss
worshiped the beloved
with a kiss.5 What can I give him,
poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb;
if I were a wise man
I would do my part,
yet what I can I give him,
give my heart.
