Loreena Mckennitt - To Drive The Cold Winter Away (1987) by Loreena Mckennitt (보컬) on maniadb.com

All hail to the days that merit more praise
Than all the rest of the year,
And welcome the nights that double delights
As well for the poor as the peer!
Good fortune attend each merry man's friend
That doth but the best that he may,
Forgetting old wrongs with carols and songs
To drive the cold winter away.

Tis ill for a mind to anger inclined
To think of small injuries now,
If wrath be to seek, do not lend her your cheek
Nor let her inhabit thy brow.
Cross out of thy books malevolent looks,
Both beauty and youth's decay,
And wholly consort with mirth and sport
To drive the cold winter away.

This time of the year is spent in good cheer
And neighbours together do meet,
To sit by the fire, with friendly desire,
Each other in love to greet.
Old grudges forgot are put in the pot,
All sorrows aside they lay,
The old and the young doth carol this song,
To drive the cold winter away.

When Christmas's tide comes in a like a bride,
With holly and ivy clad,
Twelve days in the year much mirth and good cheer
In every household is had.
The country guise is then to devise
Some gambols of Christmas play,
Whereat the young men do the best that they can
To drive the cold winter away.

White are the far-off fields,
And white the fading forests grow;
The wind dies out amongst the tides
Denser still the snow,
A gathering weight on roof and tree
Falls down scarce audibly.

The meadows and far-sheeted streams
Lie still without a sound;
Like some soft minister of dreams
The snowfall hoods me around;
In wood and water, earth and air,
Silence is everywhere.

Save when at lonely spells
Some farmer's sleigh is urged on,
With rustling runners and sharp bells,
Swings by me and is gone;
From the empty space I hear
A sound remote and clear;

The barking of a dog,
To cattle, is sharply pued,
Borne, echoing from some wayside stall
Or barnyard far afield;
Then all is silent and the snow
Falls settling soft and slow

The evening deepens and the grey
Folds closer Earth to sky
The world seems so shrouded, so far away.
Its noises sleep, and I
As secret as yon buried stream
Plod dumbly on and dream.

I dream
I dream
I dream
I dream
I dream
I dream
I dream
I dream

I come to hevin which to tell
The best nowells that e'er befell
To you thir tythings trew I bring
And I will of them say and sing.

This day to you is born ane child
Of Marie meik and Virgin mild
That bliss it bairn bening and kind
Sall you rejoyce baith hart and mind.

Lat us rejoyis and be blyth
And with the Hyrdis go full swyth
And see what God of his grace hes done
Throu Christ to bring us to his throne

My saull and life stand up and see
Wha lyis in ane cribbe of tree.
What Babe is that, sa gude and fair
It is Christ, God's son and Air.

O my deir hard, yung Jesus sweit
Prepair thy creddil in my spreit!
And I sall rock thee in my hart
And never mair fra thee depart.

Bot I sall praise thee evermoir
With sangis sweit unto thy gloir
The kneis of my hard sall I bow
And sing that rycht Balulalow.

Let us the Infant greet,
In worship before Him fall,
And let us pay Him homage meet,
On this His Festival.

Let us to the Infant sing,
And bring Him of gifts rich store,
Let us honour our Infant King
With praise for evermore.

Let us to the Infant kneel,
And love him with faithful love,
And let our joyous anthems peal,
For him who reigns above.

Glad hymns in the Infant's laud,
Sing we to Him while we may,
In heaven where He is throned as God,
Our service He will pay.

Be we to the Infant true,
While we are dwelling on mould,
And He will give us our wages due,
A crown of purest gold.

Let all that are to mirth inclined
Consider well and bear in mind
What our good God for us has done
In sending his beloved Son

For to redeem our souls from thrall
Christ is the saviour of us all.

The twenty-fifth day of December
We have good cause to remember
In Bethlehem upon that morn
There was a blessed Messiah born

But mark how all things came to pass
The inn and lodgings filled was
That they could find no room at all
But in a straw-filled oxes stall.

Near Bethlehem some shepherds keep
Their flocks and herds of feeding sheep
To whom God's angels did appear
Which put the shepherds in great fear

With thankful heart and joyful mind
The shepherds went this babe to find.
And as the heavenly angel told
They did our saviour Christ behold.

Three eastern wise men from afar,
Directed by a glorious star
Came boldly on and made no stay,
Until they came where Jesus lay.

And being come unto that place
Where the blessed Messiah was
They humbly laid before his feet
Their gifts of gold and incense sweet.

See how the Lord of heaven and earth
Shewd himself lowly in his birth;
A sweet example for mankind
To learn to bear an humble mind.

Let all your songs and praises be
Unto his heavenly majesty
And evermore amongst our mirth
Remember Christ our Saviour's birth.

When in the springtime of the year
When the trees are crowned with leaves
When the ash and oak, and the birch and yew
Are dressed in ribbons fair.

When owls call the breathless moon
in the blue veil of the night
When shadows of the trees appear
amidst the lantern('s) light.

We've been rambling all the night
and sometime of this day
Now returning back again
we bring a garland gay.

Who will go down to those shady groves
and summon the shadows there
And tie a ribbon on those sheltering arms
in the springtime of the year.

The sounds of birds seem to fill the wood
and when the fiddler plays
All their voices can be heard
long past their woodland days.

We've been rambling all the night
and sometime of this day
Now returning back again
we bring a garland gay.

And so they linked their hands and danced
'round in circles and in rows
And so the journey of the night descends
when all the shades are gone.

A garland gay we bring you here
And at your door we stand
Here's a sprout, well budded out
The work of our Lord's hand.

We've been rambling all the night
and sometime of this day
Now returning back again
we bring a garland gay.