1 Lo, how a Rose, e'er blooming
from tender stem has sprung!
Of Jesse's lineage coming
as saints of old have sung.
It came a floweret bright,
amid the cold of winter
when half spent was the night.
2 Isaiah had foretold it,
the Rose I have in mind,
With Mary we behold it,
the Virgin Mother kind.
To show God's love aright,
she bore for us a Savior,
when half spent was the night.
German:
Es ist ein' Ros entsprungen
aus einer Wurzel zart,
wie uns die Alten sungen:
von Jesse kam die Art
und hat ein Blümlein bracht
mitten im kalten Winter
wohl zu der halben Nacht.
Source: The New Century Hymnal #127
First Line: | Es ist ein' Ros' entsprungen |
Language: | German |
Notes: | Polish translation: See "Cudowna różdżka wzrosła" by Paweł Sikora; Swahili translation: See "Tawi limechipuka" |
Copyright: | Public Domain |
Es ist ein Ros (Reis) entsprungen. [Christmas.] Wackernagel, ii. p. 925, gives two forms, the first in 23 stanzas of 7 lines from the Speier Gesang-Buch (R. C), 1600 (Baümker, i. p. 156, cites it as in the ed. of 1599), the second in 6 stanzas from the Andernach Gesang-Buch (R. C), 1608. In his Kleines Gesang-Buch, 1860, No. 8, he gives stanzas i.-v., xxiii., from the Speier, with the fine melody found there. He thinks it was originally a 15th or 16th century Christmas or Twelfth Night Carol in the diocese of Trier.
It is founded on St. Luke i., ii., and on Isaiah xi. 1, 2. It interprets Isaiah's "Shoot out of the stock of Jesse" not as our Lord Jesus Christ, but as the Virgin Mary. The only translations is "A spotless Rose is blowing," a translation of stanzas i., ii. of the Speier, by Miss Winkworth, 1869, p. 85. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)