Tag: poor

I saw three ships – a contemporary re-working by Daniel Charles Damon

I am grateful to Daniel Damon, a well known hymn writer, jazz musician and composer from the USA who has offered a new perspective on this text, so fitting, sadly, for our contemporary world:
I saw three ships come sailing in
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
I saw three ships come sailing in
on Christmas day in the morning.


And what was in those ships all three
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
and what was in those ships all three
on Christmas day in the morning?


The hungry and the poor were there
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
the hungry and the poor were there
on Christmas day in the morning.


Those yearning to be free were there
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
those yearning to live free were there
on Christmas day in the morning.


If we will serve and welcome them
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
if we will serve and welcome them
on Christmas day in the morning;


Then all the bells on earth shall ring
on Christmas day, on Christmas day;
then all the bells on earth shall ring
on Christmas day in the morning.

Words and Music: English traditional; Music arr. and vss. 3-6 Daniel Charles Damon © 2022 Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188. All rights reserved. Used with permission. Please report any use of this through your copyright licence, or approach the copyright holder for permission.

Tune: I SAW THREE SHIPS
Metre: Irregular
Topical Index: Christmas, Hospitality, Refugee, Migration, Social Justice
Scripture: Luke 2:1-20, Leviticus 19:33-34; Matthew 2:1-12; 13-23; Hebrews 13:2

Daniel says: I have loved and played this English carol for years but struggled with the ancient text. I wrote some new stanzas that may give this carol new liturgical use. Carl Daw helped me finish this text.

Dan Damon’s recordings can be found here

His printed music is here

Three ships, watercolour copyright Andrew Pratt

Advent 3 Magnificat has come to stay – inspired by the Magnificat

A topsy, turvy, upturned world, 
where values are distorted, 
the first is last and last is first 
with everything contorted.
The rich are begging at the door 
while ones they were despising
are given charge of Godly wealth, 
in stature they are rising.

Magnificat has come to stay,
the proud have been extinguished; 
the humble poor are lifted high, 
their poverty relinquished. 
The reign of God has come to pass 
rebutting our world's choices, 
each one that we would count as last 
within this time rejoices.

And will we ever find a place 
with pride and wealth rejected, 
or will hypocrisy deny 
our need to be accepted? 
The choice is ours, the crisis dawns, 
the time to make decisions, 
to stand with God or walk alone 
within this world's divisions.

Andrew Pratt Words © 2011 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@stainer.co.uk . Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd
Metre: 8.7.6.7 D
Tune: CONSTANCE

Rich and poor – So sad that this poem is still pertinent after 174 years?

"How little can the rich man know
Of what the poor man feels,
When Want, like some dark dæmon foe,
Nearer and nearer steals!

He never tramp'd the weary round,
A stroke of work to gain,
And sicken'd at the dreaded sound
Telling him 'twas in vain.

Foot-sore, heart-sore, he never came
Back through the winter's wind,
To a dark cellar, there no flame,
No light, no food, to find.

He never saw his darlings lie
Shivering, the flags their bed;
He never heard that maddening cry,
'Daddy, a bit of bread!'"

William Gaskell (in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton, 1848)

A topsy-turvy, upturned world – the time to make decisions – Magnificat for election time

A topsy-turvy, upturned world,
where values are distorted,
the first is last and last is first
with everything contorted.
The rich are begging at the door
while ones they were despising
are given charge of Godly wealth,
in stature they are rising.

Magnificat has come to stay,
the proud have been extinguished;
the humble poor are lifted high,
their poverty relinquished.
The reign of God has come to pass
rebutting our world’s choices,
each one that we would count as last
within this time rejoices.

And will we ever find a place
with pride and wealth rejected,
or will hypocrisy deny
our need to be accepted?
The choice is ours, the crisis dawns,
the time to make decisions,
to stand with God or walk alone
within this world’s divisions.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
8 7 8 7 D Tune: CONSTANCE (Sullivan)
Words © 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.

Who rules the world just like a king?

Who rules the world just like a king
within our present time and space?
Who has the power of life and death,
of healing or withholding grace.

As politicians seek our votes,
exposing or obscuring truth,
sometimes their language loses rhyme,
while arguments become obtuse.

Just what is truth and where is love,
and what would Jesus do or say?
And how are we to follow faith
within our present time and day?

Who rules our wills, who charms our lives,
the powerful, or those hid from sight;
the weak, denied, or those abused
who hide away within the night?

The least is Jesus in our midst.
The least of these is Christ the King.
Then let the world turn upside down
the poor must rise and rule and sing.
© Andrew Pratt 27/10/2012
Tune: FULDA, GONFALON ROYAL
Metre: LM
CHRIST THE KING
Words © 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.