Nowell! Nowell!

Top Media Text Author Text Info Tune Arrangements Page Scans Instances

Nowell! Nowell! Good news I tell

Author: George R. Woodward
Tune: ACH GOTT UND HERR (17655 major)
Published in 2 hymnals

Printable scores: PDF, Noteworthy Composer
Audio files: MIDI

Piano/Organ
	Five Easter Season Hymn Improvisations,…

Representative Text

1 Nowell! Nowell! Good news I tell,
And eke a wonder story;
A virgin mild hath born a child,
Jesus the King of glory.

2 Ave Marie! O well is thee,
Thou daughter born of Anna.
Before thy Son, that holy One,
Archangels sang Osanna.

3 Then praise be sung and bells be rung,
To greet this kindly stranger;
Th’Ancient of Days, mankind to raise,
Abhorreth not the manger.

Source: The Cyber Hymnal #11845

All representative texts • Compare texts ^ top

Author: George R. Woodward

Educated at Caius College in Cambridge, England, George R. Woodward (b. Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, 1848; d. Highgate, London, England, 1934) was ordained in the Church of England in 1874. He served in six parishes in London, Norfolk, and Suffolk. He was a gifted linguist and translator of a large number of hymns from Greek, Latin, and German. But Woodward's theory of translation was a rigid one–he held that the translation ought to reproduce the meter and rhyme scheme of the original as well as its contents. This practice did not always produce singable hymns; his translations are therefore used more often today as valuable resources than as congregational hymns. With Charles Wood he published three series of The Cowley Carol Book (19… Go to person page >

^ top