"Songs she sang to me, words she brang to me..."

How does (faux?) archaism in the second verse of Woodward's Christmas carol "Ding dong! Merrily on high" strike you? (The whole song can, I think, with its hyperelongated "glo>...>ria", profitably be viewed as a parody of "Shepherds in the field abiding" (what we Americans think of as "Angels we have heard on high").

E'en so here below, below,
Let steeple bells be swungen,
And io, io, io,
By priest and people sungen:
     Glo------------------------------ria,
          Hosana in excelsis!
     Glo------------------------------ria,
          Hosana in excelsis!

I note in passing that the Esperanto version makes no effort to preserve the archaism. And, for that matter, though translated by a Catholic sacerdote, it renders "priest" as "pastor", hence making it much more acceptable to us Baptists with our penchant for the Priesthood of the Believer. ;-)

Liland