“The child then spake in his talking,
  And to his mother he said,
It happeneth, mother, I am a king,
  In crib though I be laid,
For angels bright
Did down alight,
  Thou knowest it is no nay;
And of that sight
Thou may’st be light
  To sing, by-by, lullay!

“Now, sweet son, since thou art a king,
  Why art thou laid in stall? 
Why not ordain thy bedding
  In some great king his hall? 
We thinketh ’tis right
That king or knight
  Should be in good array;
And them among,
It were no wrong
  To sing, by-by, lullay!

“Mary, mother, I am thy child,
  Tho’ I be laid in stall;
Lords and dukes shall worship me,
  And so shall kinges all. 
And ye shall see
That kinges three
  Shall come on the twelfth day;
For this behest
Give me thy breast,
  And sing, by-by, lullay!”

“See here,” quoth Miles Standish, “when my Rose singeth, the children gather round her like bees round a flower.  Come, let us all strike up a goodly carol together.  Sing one, sing all, girls and boys, and get a bit of Old England’s Christmas before to-morrow, when we must to our work on shore.”

Thereat Rose struck up a familiar ballad-meter of a catching rhythm, and every voice of young and old was soon joining in it: 

“Behold a silly,[1] tender Babe,
  In freezing winter night,
In homely manger trembling lies;
  Alas! a piteous sight,
The inns are full, no man will yield
  This little Pilgrim bed;
But forced He is, with silly beasts
  In crib to shroud His head. 
Despise Him not for lying there,
  First what He is inquire: 
An orient pearl is often found
  In depth of dirty mire.

“Weigh not His crib, His wooden dish,
  Nor beasts that by Him feed;
Weigh not His mother’s poor attire,
  Nor Joseph’s simple weed. 
This stable is a Prince’s court,
  The crib His chair of state,
The beasts are parcel of His pomp,
  The wooden dish His plate. 
The persons in that poor attire
  His royal liveries wear;
The Prince Himself is come from Heaven,
  This pomp is prized there. 
With joy approach, O Christian wight,
  Do homage to thy King;
And highly praise His humble pomp,
  Which He from Heaven doth bring.”

[Footnote 1:  Old English—­simple.]

The cheerful sounds spread themselves through the ship like the flavor of some rare perfume, bringing softness of heart through a thousand tender memories.

Anon, the hour of Sabbath morning worship drew on, and Elder Brewster read from the New Testament the whole story of the Nativity, and then gave a sort of Christmas homily from the words of St. Paul, in the eighth chapter of Romans, the sixth and seventh verses, which the Geneva version thus renders: 

“For the wisdom of the flesh is death, but the wisdom of the spirit is
  life and peace.