_Rorate Coeli desuper!_
Heavens, distil your balmy showers,
For now is risen the bright daystar
From the Rose Mary, flower of flowers;
The clear sun, whom no cloud devours,
Surmounting Phoebus in the east,
Is comen of his heavenly towers;
_Et nobis Puer natus est._
Archangels, angels, dominations,
Thrones, potentates, and martyrs seir,[31]
And all the heavenly operations,
Star, planet, firmament, and sphere,
Fire, earth, air, and water clear,
To Him give loving, most and least,
That come is in so meek maneir;
_Et nobis Puer natus est._
Sinners, be glad, and penance do,
And thank your Maker heartily,
For He, that ye might not come to,
To you is comen full humbly,
Your soulës with His blood to buy,
And loose you of the fiend’s arrest,
And only of His own mercy;
_Pro nobis Puer natus est._
Celestial fowlës in the air,
Sing with your notes upon hight,
In firthës and forests fair.
Be mirthful now, at all your might,
For passed is your dully night;
Aurora has the cloudis perced,
The sun is risen with gladsome light,
_Et nobis Puer natus est._
Now spring up flowrës from the root,
Revert you upward naturally,
In honour of the blessed fruit
That rose up from the Rose Mary;
Lay out your leavës lustily,
From dead take life now, at the least,
In worship of that Prince worthy,
_Qui nobis Puer natus est._
Sing heaven imperial, most of height,
Regions of air make harmony;
All fish in floud, and fowl of flight,
Be mirthful and make melody;
All Gloria in Excelsis cry,
Heaven, earth, sea, man, bird, and beast,
He that is crowned above the sky.
_Pro nobis Puer natus est._
WILLIAM DUNBAR
[31] Many.