In a belated celebration of Christmas here are two pieces from Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols:

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, unarmed 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 made of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns cold and need,
And feeble flesh his warrior's steed.

His camp is pitched in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall;
The crib his trench, hay stalks his stakes,
Of shepherds he his muster makes;
And thus as sure his foe to wound,
The angels' trumps alarum sound.

My soul with Christ join thou in fight,
Stick to the tents that he hath pight;
Within his crib is surest ward,
This little babe will be thy guard;
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
Then flit not from the heavenly boy.

From Robert Southwell’s “New Heaven, New War”



There is no rose of sych vertu
As is the rose that bare Jesu,
Alleluia.

For in this rose contained was
Heaven and earth in lytle space,
Res miranda.

By that rose we may well see
That He is God in persons three,
Pares forma.
The aungels sungen the shepherds to:
Gloria in excelsis Deo,
Gaudeamus.

Leave we all this werldly mirth,
And follow we this joyful birth,
Transeamus.

Alleluia, res miranda,
Pares forma, gaudeamus,
Transeamus.

Anonymous, 14th Century