Sweet Musicke, Sweeter Farre Lyrics

Sweet Musicke, sweeter farre
Then any song is sweet:
Sweet Musicke heauenly rare,
Mine eares, O peeres, doth greeete.
You gentle flocks, whose fleeces, pearl'd with dewe,
Resemble heaven, whom golden drops make bright:
Listen, O Listen, now, O not to you
Our pipes make sport to shorten wearie night.
But voyces most diuine
Make blissfull harmonie:
Voyces that seeme to shine,
For what else cleares the skie?
Tunes can we heare, but not the singers see,
The tunes diuine, and so the singers be.

Loe how the firmament
Within an azure fold
The flock of starres hath pent,
That we might them behold.
Yet from their beames proceedeth not this light,
Not can their christals such reflection giue.
What then doth make the element so bright?
The heauens are come downe vpon earth to liue.
But harken to the song,
Glory to glories king,
And pece all men among,
These quyeristers doe sing.
Angels they are, as also (Shepheards) hee
Whom in our feare we doe admire to see.

Let not amazement blinde
your soules, said he, annoy:
To you and all mankinde
My message bringeth joy.
For loe the world's great Shepheard now is borne,
A blessed babe, an infant full of power:
After long night, vp-risen is the morne,
Renowning Bethlem in the Sauiour.
Sprung is the perfect day,
By prophets seene a farre:
Sprung is the mirthfull May,
Which Winter cannot marre,
In Dauid's citie doth this sunne appeare:
Clouded in flesh, yet Shepheards sit we here.