What Sweeter Music

by Robert Harrick

What sweeter music can we bring
Than a carol for to sing
The birth of this our heavenly King?
Awake the voice! Awake the string!

Dark and dull night, fly hence away
And give the honor to this day
That sees December turned to May
That sees December turned to May

Why does the chilling winter's morn
Smile like a field beset with corn?
Or smell like a meadow newly-shorn
Thus, on the sudden? Come and see

The cause, why things thus fragrant be:
'Tis He is born, whose quickening birth
Gives life and luster, public mirth
To heaven and the under-earth

We see him come, and know him ours
Who with his sunshine and his showers
Turns all the patient ground to flowers
Turns all the patient ground to flowers

The darling of the world is come
And fit it is we find a room
To welcome him: the nobler part
Of all the house here is the heart

Which we will give him and bequeath
This holly and this ivy wreath
To do him honour, who's our King
And Lord of all this revelling

What sweeter music can we bring
Than a carol for to sing
The birth of this our heavenly King?