Читать книгу Best Loved Christmas Carols, Readings and Poetry - Martin Manser - Страница 10

This carol is a traditional choice for the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge and was originally included as a memorial to one of the chapel’s directors of music, Boris Ord (1897–1961), who provided the musical setting. The carol remains Ord’s only published composition. The carol was first recorded in a fifteenth-century manuscript, which also produced ‘Lullay, my liking’.

Adam lay ybounden,

Bounden in a bond;

Four thousand winter

Thought he not too long.

All for an apple,

An apple that he took,

As clerkes finden

Written in their book.

Ne had the apple taken been,

The apple taken been,

Ne had never our Lady

Abeen heavene queen.

Blessed be the time

That apple taken was;

Therefore we moun singen:

Deo gracias! Deo gracias! Deo gracias!

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