VocalEssence Chorus

Lo, how a rose e’er blooming,
From tender stem hath sprung.
Of Jesse’s lineage coming,
As men of old have sung.
It came a flower-et bright,
Amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night
Isaiah ‘twas foretold it,
The Rose I have in mind,
With Mary we behold it,
The virgin mother kind;
To show God’s love a-right.
She bore to us a Savior,
When half spent was the night.
O, Flower, whose fragrance tender,
With sweetness fill the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor
The darkness everywhere;
True man, yet very God,
From sin and death now save us,
And share our every load.
—from Mainz 1587-88, verse 3 by Friedrich Layritz, 1844