Joy, joy, &c.
Christmas
NATO NOBIS SALVATORE
By Adam of St. Victor. A native of either Britain or Brittany, probably the latter; educated at Paris; became, about 1130, a monk in the Abbey of St. Victor, then in the suburbs, afterwards absorbed in the city of Paris; there he passed the remainder of his life, and died somewhere between the years 1172 and 1192. In liturgical services the Gradual or Antiphon, sung between the Epistle and Gospel, ended on festival days with the word Alleluia. The final syllable of this vocable was prolonged in a number of musical notes called sequentia, and by the ninth century it became common to adapt words to these notes, which words are now called “sequences.” Adam of St. Victor was one of the most voluminous composers of this kind of sacred Latin verse.
I
Let us tune our hearts and voices—
All creation wide rejoices,
For a Saviour has been born;
Given to man, his weakness wearing,
Dwelling with the sad despairing,