A wonderful Cornish carol sent to Baring-Gould from St Issy by Mr J W Yeale who had heard it sung when he was a boy some 30 years earlier. Loose in the manuscript there is also a printed copy of another version of the carol sent to Baring-Gould by Lady Ingeborg Molesworth-St Aubyn who published it, together with a cutting from the West Briton describing how it had been collected in 1921 from Mrs Lobb of Penrose who had learnt it from her grandfather. This is closer to the version of this carol that is still sung in Padstow.

 

 

Rouse, rouse from your slumber, prepare a glad voice

And join with the number that now do rejoice

No longer be silent, but now join with them

Hark! Angels are bringing glad tidings to men

 

What blissful glad tidings are these that we hear?

Rejoicing harmonious that sounds from the sphere

‘Tis music transporting, cherubic, profound

Creation’s vast circuit it echoes around

 

Hark! Hark to the chorus, salvation to men

To those humble shepherds that dwell on the plain

‘Tis Jesus the Saviour, come see where he’s born

In Bethlehem’s city on this happy morn

 

Then straightway those shepherd’s to Bethlehem steered

Mysteriously led by a star that appeared

Then Joseph and Mary they saw with surprise

And laid in a manger the King of the Skies