From east to west, from shore to shore,
Let every heart awake and sing
The holy child whom Mary bore,
The Christ, the everlasting king.
Behold, the world’s creator wears
The form and fashion of a slave;
Our very flesh our maker shares,
His fallen creature, man, to save.
For this how wondrously he wrought!
A maiden, in her lowly place,
Became, in ways beyond all thought,
The chosen vessel of his grace.
She bowed her to the angel’s word
Declaring what the father willed,
And suddenly the promised lord
That pure and hallowed temple filled.
He shrank not from the oxen’s stall,
He lay within the