The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #133367   Message #3025587
Posted By: Joe Offer
06-Nov-10 - 08:09 PM
Thread Name: PolishCarol-Infant Holy Infant Lowly/W Zlobie Lezy
Subject: ADD: Infant Holy / W Zlobie Lezy
Our church choir sang this carol (in English) on Christmas, and people really liked it. My wife grew up speaking Polish, and she said she had heard it as a child in Rhode Island - in Polish.

There's a wonderful recording of this song on Twas on a Night Like This: A Christmas Legacy, the Christmas album from Folk-Legacy Records. It's two women singing, so I guess it must be Cathy Barton and Caroline Paton - both lovely voices.

-Joe-

You'll find it at Cyberhymnal and at Wikipedia.
Here are the English and Polish lyrics from Wikipedia:

W Zlobie Lezy
INFANT HOLY, INFANT LOWLY

W żłobie leży! Któż pobieży
Kolędować małemu
Jezusowi Chrystusowi
Dziś nam narodzonemu?
Pastuszkowie przybywajcie
Jemu wdzięcznie przygrywajcie
Jako Panu naszemu.

My zaś sami z piosneczkami
Za wami pospieszymy
A tak Tego Maleńkiego
Niech wszyscy zobaczymy
Jak ubogo narodzony
Płacze w stajni położony
Więc go dziś ucieszymy.


English translation by Edith Margaret Gellibrand Reed (Text included in Carols for Choirs (Book 1) and 100 Carols for Choirs)

Infant holy,
Infant lowly,
For His bed a cattle stall;
Oxen lowing,
Little knowing
Christ the Babe is Lord of all.
Swift are winging
Angels singing,
Nowells ringing,
Tidings bringing,
Christ the Babe is Lord of all.

Flocks were sleeping,
Shepherds keeping
Vigil till the morning new,;
Saw the glory,
Heard the story,
Tidings of a Gospel true.
Thus rejoicing,
Free from sorrow,
Praises voicing,
Greet the morrow,
Christ the Babe was born for you!



Cyberhymnal says the Reed translation was dated 1921, so it's most likely in the public domain: Traditional carol in Spiewniczek Piesni Koscielne, 1908; translated from Polish to English by Edith M. Reed, 1921.