It came upon a midnight clear, / that glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth / to touch their harps of gold:
'Peace on the earth, good will to men, / from heaven's all-gracious King!'
The world in solemn stillness lay / to hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come / with peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats / o'er all the weary world …

quote:

Perhaps someone more theologically knowledgeable than I can explain the image of 'cloven' or 'split' skies.

Sing we all Noel, hear the music all around.
Sing we all Noel, let the joy resound.
Sing we all Noel, the gladsome tidings bring
Lift our God on high as His praises now we sing.

Summing up William F. Buckley's achievements over the past half-century, the deputy director of public liaison at the White House, Timothy Goeglein, spoke of "a hopeful, cheerful, gladsome conservatism."
– Gary Shapiro, Buckley's Birthday Bash, The New York Sun, Nov. 18, 2005

The snath has a handhold on it that enables an easy, comfortable, swinging motion, each arc swinging into the grain in front of you and cutting a swath about 2 feet across.
– Carla Emery, The Encyclopedia of Country Living: An Old Fashioned Recipe Book

• The team became “we” and fans rushed to swaddle themselves in team colors.
• His [George Bush's] father had helped to swaddle him with a foreign-policy "dream team"...
• Winter darkness swaddles the long evenings
• the comforting bands of ignorance that swaddle us.
• the ferns and low-hanging branches that swaddle the driveway
• swaddle themselves in waterproof raincoats.
  – Jere Longman, If Football's a Religion, Why Don't We Have a Prayer?; Maureen Dowd, Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk; Joyce Rupp, Macrina Wiederkehr, The Circle Of Life; Dan Burton, David Grandy, Magic, Mystery, and Science: The Occult in Western Civilization; W P Kinsella, Shoeless Joe; Elizabeth Abbott, A History of Celibacy

O come, little children, O come one and all,
To Bethlehem haste, to the manger so small,
God's son for a gift has been sent you this night
To be your redeemer, your joy and delight.
He's born in a stable for you and for me,
Draw near by the bright gleaming starlight to see,
In swaddling clothes lying so meek and so mild,
And purer than angels the heavenly Child.

While Shepherds watch their flocks by night / All seated on the ground
The angel of the Lord came down /And glory shone around
"Fear not," said he for mighty dread / had seized their troubled mind
"Glad tidings of great joy I bring / To you and all man-kind"
"To you in David's town this day / Is born of David's line
The Savior who is Christ the Lord / And this shall me the sign
The heav'n'ly babe you there shall find / To human view displayed
All meanly wrapped in swathing bands / And in a manger laid".

the new-made bridegroom … / For whom …Juliet pined.
– Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

O Holy Night
The stars are brightly shining
It is the night of our dear Savior's birth
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

quote:

to languish with intense desire; to be consumed with longing ... to languish and waste away from grief or other intense suffering

quote:

Juliet pined at the absence of Romeo, and wished he were present.
The world pined at the presence of sin, and wished it were absent.

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear; second verse:
Still through the cloven skies they come / With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats / O'er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains / They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds / The blessed angels sing.

the airline industry['s] … fare structure that seems to have been structured during the lunch hour at the Tower of Babel.
– Bill Conlin, Philadelphia Daily News, Aug. 12, 1997

On Saturday nights, as many as 300 young women line the margins of E55, a Czech highway near the German border. Their costumes vary: light frocks, skimpy red dresses, glow-in-the-dark Spandex pants. They speak a babel of languages: Czech, Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, German. But they have only one thing to sell: sex.
– Margot Hornblower, The Skin Trade, Time, June 21, 1993

Sing we all Noel, with a joyous roundelay.
Sing we all Noel, hear the news today.
[Many sites have 'rondelay', but this is either a typo or an antique version.]

Ah, leave me not to pine / Alone and desolate;
No fate seemed fair as mine, / No happiness so great!
And Nature, day by day, / Has sung in accents clear
This joyous roundelay,
"He loves thee – he is here. / Fal, la, la, la, Fal, la, la, la.
He loves thee – he is here. / Fal, la, la, Fal, la!"
- Gilbert & Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance

quote:

Originally posted by wordcrafter:
roundelay – a song or poem in which a line or phrase is repeated as the refrain; or, a simply simple song with a refrain
[From Old Fr., tracing to rondel, circle’][LIST]Sing we all Noel, with a joyous roundelay.
Sing we all Noel, hear the news today.
[Many sites have 'rondelay', but this is either a typo or an antique version.]

Ah, leave me not to pine / Alone and desolate;
No fate seemed fair as mine, / No happiness so great!
And Nature, day by day, / Has sung in accents clear
This joyous roundelay,
"He loves thee – he is here. / Fal, la, la, la, Fal, la, la, la.
He loves thee – he is here. / Fal, la, la, Fal, la!"
- Gilbert & Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance