The Loveliest Blooming Rose (Day Six)

This carol comes from the Kancional (1602) a songbook of the Bohemian Brethren collected by Tobias Zavorka Lipensky (1554-1612). It still appears in Lutheran and Mennonite hymnals today. Zavorka was a pastor in the Bohemian city of Doubrava (now in the Czech Republic), and his influential hymnal contained more than a thousand hymns, songs, and antiphons. The most information available about Lipensky online (which still isn't much) is found only in the Czech version of Wikipedia (though you can translate it with the button at the top of that page).

Let our gladness have no end,
Hallelujah!
For to earth did Christ descend.
Hallelujah!

Refrain
On this day God gave us
Jesus Christ, to save us;
Jesus Christ, to save us.

Prophesied in days of old,
Hallelujah!
Humbly born, as was foretold,
Hallelujah!

See, the loveliest blooming Rose,
Hallelujah!
From the branch of Jesse grows.
Hallelujah!
Refrain

Into flesh is made the Word.
Hallelujah!
Christ, our refuge and our Lord.
Hallelujah!
Refrain

Kancional, 1602; 

tr. unknown; alt.

Tune: NARODILSE KRISTUS PÁN (7.4.7.4. with refrain)

Bohemian carol, 15th cent.

P.S. - If you followed a Facebook link to get here you can click on the blog logo above to see the rest of the current Twelve Days of Christmas celebration.

Eight Years Ago: William Croft

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

Four Years Ago: Like the sound of many waters

One Year Ago: There's a star in the east