Follow the Star of Bethlehem (Day Six)

There’s a star in the east on Christmas morn.
Rise up, shepherd, and follow.
It will lead to the place where the Christ was born.
Rise up, shepherd, and follow.

Refrain
Follow, follow;
rise up, shepherd, and follow.
Follow the star of Bethlehem.
Rise up, shepherd, and follow.

If you take good heed to the angel’s words,
rise up, shepherd, and follow.
You’ll forget your flocks, you’ll forget your herds.
Rise up, shepherd, and follow.
Refrain

African-American spiritual, 19th cent.
Tune: STAR IN THE EAST (Irregular with refrain)

Several sources claim that this spiritual was first published in Slave Songs of the United States (1867), the first book of music collected from the oral tradition of the American slaves. I don't find it in that edition available online though there may have been later editions of the book that added it. It is found in Religious Folk Songs of the Negro as Sung on the Plantations (1909), an edition of an earlier book compiled by Thomas P. Fenner in 1874. Fenner was the head of the music department at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (now Hampton University) in Virginia.


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Seven Years Ago: William Croft

Six Years Ago: Music I love -- but ne'er a strain

Three Years Ago: Like the sound of many waters