Circumcision’s Song

The New yeeres Gift, or Circumcisions Song,
sung to the King in the Presence at White-Hall.

Prepare for Songs;
He's come, He's come;
And be it sin here to be dumb,
And not with Lutes to fill the roome.

Cast Holy Water all about,
And have a care no fire goes out,
But 'cense the porch,
and place throughout.

The Altars all on fier be;
The Storax fries; and ye may see,
How heart and hand do all agree,
To make things sweet.
Chor. Yet all less sweet then He.

Bring Him along, most pious Priest,
And tell us then, when as thou seest
His gently-gliding, Dove-like eyes,
And hear'st His whimp'ring, and His cries;
How canst thou this Babe circumcise?

Ye must not be more pitifull then wise;
For, now unlesse ye see Him bleed,
Which makes the Bapti'me; 'tis decreed,
The Birth is fruitlesse:
Chor. Then the work God speed.

Touch gently, gently touch;
and here Spring Tulips up through all the yeere;
And from His sacred Bloud, here shed,
May Roses grow, to crown His own deare Head.
Chor. Back, back again; each thing is done
With zeale alike, as 'twas begun;

Now singing, homeward let us carrie
The Babe unto His Mother Marie;
And when we have the Child commended
To her warm bosome, then our Rites are ended.

- Robert Herrick

(This was a reprint from 2006, courtesy of "Rooster Cogburn" who passed it along.)