A jovial, energetic Christmas carol for ATB men’s voices, piano, and handbells (optional).
Lyrics
Villagers all this frosty tide, let your door swing open wide,
the wind may follow and snow beside, yet draw us in by your fire to bide:
Joy shall be yours in the morning.
Here we stand in the cold and the sleet, blowing fingers and stamping feet,
come from far away you to greet—you by the fire and we in the street—
bidding you joy in the morning.
For ere one half of the night was gone, sudden a star has led us on,
raining bliss and benison—bliss tomorrow and more anon
Joy for every morning.
Good-man Joseph toiled thru the snow saw the star o’er a stable low;
Mary she might no further go Welcome thorn and litter below.
Joy was hers in the morning.
And then they hear the angels tell, “Who were the first to cry ‘Nowell’?”
Animals all as it befell in the stable where they did dwell,
Joy shall be theirs in the morning.
—Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
