Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: Artful Codger
Date: 11 Apr 13 - 12:55 AM

For the Ingalls (rather than Poston) setting of this song, see this newer thread:

JC the Appletree from 1805: http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=148949

leeneia has posted MIDIs of the three parts there, and Haruo has added a link to the score from the 2005 reworked edition of Ingall's Christian Harmony, with Mr Malone's permission. I'll shortly post ABCs of the three voice parts in that thread. It only took seven years. ;-}

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 09 Mar 06 - 01:51 PM

Tom, I'm tickled to hear that people are keeping Ingalls' music alive. Best wishes on your festival.

I thought I mentioned this before, but maybe I didn't - Ingalls wrote a hymn called "Lovely Vine," that mentions "Ye insects, feeble race." There can't be that many hymns with insects in them.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: Burke
Date: 08 Mar 06 - 05:35 PM

I've had a chance to check the 5th ed. of Smith's Divine Hymns. I found a mistake in the 5th verse as posted on the Northern Harmony site.

With great delight I'll make my stay,
There none shall fright my soul away;
Among the sons of men I see,
There's none like Christ the Appletree.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From:
Date: 25 Feb 06 - 04:33 PM

Hello all:

I am the editor of the new edition of Jeremiah Ingalls "The Christian Harmony" in shape notes.

We have an annual festival of Ingalls music in Newbury VT, on July 22nd so come and sing with us. Check out the website:

www.SingIngalls.org

Ingalls is the subject of my dissertation research and Tony Barrand is one of my advisers, Yes he knows the tune of Appletree well.

How the lyrics fit the tune is actually much more tricky than I'd like to admit. The Northern Harmony version uses "This beauty doth all things excel..." as a refrain. But Ingalls does not specifcally indicate that.

Hovever he provides 7 stanzas of text and it is a double long-meter tune, so each time through the music requires two stanzas of text. hmmm...

So either way you sing it you run in to trouble. Paul Hillier sings it straight through leaving off the refrain, but I chose to use the refrain in my new edition because Shape-note singers in VT have been singing it that way since the 1980's, and at least in that region it has become traditional.

All the best,

Tom Malone
Boston University
www.SingIngallsorg
[e-mail]

P.S. If anyone wants a Pdf of the tune or a MP3 of a shape-note version, just let me know.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: GUEST,Q as guest
Date: 18 Feb 06 - 04:34 PM

My monitor gave up the ghost so I am on my wife's machine.
I took my information from material on the web so I may have misunderstood or the website description may have been garbled. I do not have the cds. Artful Codger seems to be correct.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: Artful Codger
Date: 17 Feb 06 - 09:31 PM

Though a number of Ingalls' works appear in shape-note books, Ingalls collection The Christian Harmony was written in standard notation--he was not a shape-note composer, per se. His book should not be confused with William Walker's shape-note collection Christian Harmony, published in 1866. To muddy the water further, an edition of Ingalls' Christian Harmony was published in 2005; for it, the editor used shape-note format--historical revisionism at work. They also put out a CD recording of selections; see: http://www.singingalls.org/Commerce.htm

The 4-shape system first appeared in 1801, in Wm. Small and Wm. Little's Easy Instructor. But the golden age of shape-note singing ran roughly from the 1820's until the Civil War, and was concentrated in the South. The most popular collections didn't appear until this time, for instance, Southern Harmony (William Walker, New Haven, 1835) and The Sacred Harp (Benjamin Franklin White and E.J. King, 1844).
...

I was a bit confused by Q's citations; the song "Liberty Tree" has no relation to "The Appletree" that I'm aware of, nor did the Boston Camerata combine them in any manner on one track.

The Camerata recorded the song "Liberty Tree" on the album Liberty Tree, track 3. On The American Vocalist, they sing "I Shall Be Satisfied" (from The Revivalist), which was set to the same tune as "Liberty Tree". A similar contrast of a secular song reset with a religious text occurs with LT track 19, "Working Boy", and AV track 15, "Go Worship at Emmanuel's Feet". Religious fervor excuses all manner of corruptions, apparently.

They recorded "The Appletree" on Liberty Tree, track 8. In the liner notes, Joel Cohen says that this tune began as an instrumental march but doesn't specify whether Ingalls wrote or merely arranged the tune. And though their source was The Christian Harmony (with Smith's text), they perform it as an instrumental.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: JJ
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 10:17 AM

I have a recording of this on "James Galway's Christmas Carol," a 1986 RCA LP (HRC1-5888). Music by Elizabeth Poston. Words are anonymous, from the collection of Joshua Smith, New Hampshire, 1784.

This is the same version my daughter sang in the mid-1990s as a chorister at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the Episcopal cathedral in New York City.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: SharonA
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 03:40 PM

Thank you, Q, for your post of 08 Jan 06 - 12:05 AM. I'll bet you're right about those verses being the basis for the hymn. Makes perfect sense now!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 08:29 PM

A long clip of "The Apple Tree," Ingalls, choral version by the Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier, director, "Carols from the Old and New Worlds," 1994, Harmonia Mundi, may be heard on Amazon (track 5 of 24).
Ingalls, "The Apple Tree," on the cd "Home to Thanksgiving," Harmonia Mundi.

"Liberty Tree" by Anon., according to track listings for "Trav'ling Home, American Spirituals, 1770-1870," Erato label, (from the American Vocalist), Boston Camerata.

"Liberty Tree," choral, may be heard separately on the cd of that name, Boston Camerata, track 3 ("QuicK March" as noted by Burke). "The Apple Tree" combined with "Liberty Tree," on track 8, a distortion.

These with sound clips on amazon.com

Burke, thanks for posting Ingalls' "The Apple Tree." Wish I could get to a copy of Evans to see the original, but apparently no school in Alberta has it yet.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: Burke
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 07:11 PM

After I posted that last message I did a search on Allmusic.com & found that Paul Hillier recorded it with "Theatre of Voices" and it has been released on at least 3 recordings. You have to login to Allmusic, so I'm not going to try to create a link. A song search of Apple Tree will turn them up. There a sound clips of slightly different sections. One starts with the 2nd half. They've also rearranged the words so the 2nd half is another verse, instead of a chorus.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: Burke
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 06:48 PM

The midi file from Leenia reproduces the top line of Ingalls' setting. Masato's ABC is the middle line, but impossibly fast. Usually in the hymn settings of this period the middle line is considered the tune. For this one I'd flip a coin as both parts seem equally melodic. The top line mostly lies above the middle. The middle line actually has a much wider range, going both higher & lower than the top part: Middle C to High A vs F to G. Here's an instrumental version that plays it through almost twice.

Elastic Millennium Choir of Nova Scotia has recorded both versions on The Better Land. I have not heard this recording

According to the notes in "Northern Harmony" the text is by R.H. in London Spiritual Magazine 1761. Joshua Smith's "Divine Hymns" does seem to be Ingalls' immediate source.

Tune: 1st half same as 1st half of "Quick March" in The Pantomime of Oscar and Malvina opera, printed in The Musical Repertory, 1796; 2nd half variation of same popular instrumental piece. David Klock's dissertation of 1978 was the source for at least some of this information. Is he the editor of the facsimile as well?

From what I can find in WorldCat "Oscar and Malvina" was published in England by 1791. Music composed by William Reeve and William Shield.

"Christian Harmony" has been published in shape notes recently. I'll try to check it for any additional info when I get home.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 02:35 PM

A closer reading of the intro to Christian Harmony seems to show that Ingalls got the the words from somewhere else, probably Joshua Smith's "Divine Hymns."

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: Burke
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 05:55 PM

I've sung both the Posten version in church choir & Ingalls' at shape note singings. I like them both.

Ingalls' is also in Northern Harmony. Anyone know if it' even been in the Nowell Sing We Clear repertoire? Tony Barrand certanily knows it.

The second verse is used as the chorus. The Words here have 2 more verses so I am reposting the whole thing. Anyone with access to Digital Evans? You could actually look at the original.   290 of These institutions have it. (We have Early American Newspapers, which I've already checked)

The Appletree 12
Lyrics: Anon.
Tune: Jeremiah Ingalls
Meter: L.M.D. (8.8.8.8.8.8.8.8.)

The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green;
The trees of nature fruitless be,
Compar'd with Christ the Appletree.

    Chorus:
    This beauty doth all things excel,
    By faith I know but ne'er can tell,
    The glory which I now can see
    In Jesus Christ the Appletree.

For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought,
I miss'd of all but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the Appletree.

I'm wearied with my former toil,
Here I shall sit and rest awhile;
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the Appletree.

With great delight I'll make my stay,
There none shall fright my soul away;
Among the songs of men I see,
There's none like Christ the Appletree.

I'll sit and eat this fruit divine,
It cheers my heart like spiritual wine;
And now this fruit is sweet to me,
That grows on Christ the Appletree.

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the Appletree.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 03:10 PM

In the score of "Jesus Christ the Apple Tree," Poston, Glade Music Publications, the Cambridge Hymnal, and "Hymns and Carols of Christmas," the line is "His beauty doth all things excel:"

Did Poston changed the line as written by Joshua Smith?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 12:31 PM

You're welcome, Joe.

Earlier I said that the B part of this is a canon. That was wrong. The words are repeated in the parts, but the notes differ.

To make the words fit the tune, you repeat the third line. Like this:

The tree of life my soul hath seen,laden with fruit and always green;
The trees of nature fruitless be compared with Christ the apple tree.

This beauty doth all things excel,by faith I know, but ne'er can tell
This beauty doth all things excel,by faith I know, but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see in Jesus Christ the apple tree.

BTW, it's "This beauty" not "His beauty".
------------
Does everyone know that you can right click on the blue clicky and download (Save target as) the MIDI's into your music program, such as Finale or Noteworthy? Then you can transpose it, print it, change the time, all sorts of neat things.

My ulterior aim is that someone will actually play the thing and have fun.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 11:51 PM

Leeneia sent a tune for posting.
Thanks, Leeneia.
-Joe Offer-

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Click to play

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...also one based on the ABC by Masato from George Pullen Jackson's book:

Click to play

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: masato sakurai
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 10:13 AM

Another song later connected with Christmas is "Jingle Bells."

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 09:44 AM

I think that someone did a Christmas concert once and included the song for a little variety, and that's all there is to it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 12:05 AM

SharonA, perhaps a theological student can explain (not me!).

I found a rather pointless discussion which notes that the "words are peculiar, but then, the tune's a trifle odd, too" (The article is a little peculiar as well). Apple Tree

These verses perhaps are the basis of the hymn:

1. As the apple among the trees of the wood,
So is my Beloved (Jesus) among the sons.

I sat down under His shadow with great delight,
And his fruit was sweet to my taste.
He brought me to the banqueting house,
And His banner over me was love.
Song of Songs 2.3-4

2. The tree of life my soul has seen, etc.- continues with the words to "Jesus Christ the Apple Tree."
This from Tree of Life

The hymn seems to have intrigued arrangers, and several have set their own music to it.
The words are included in "The Hymns and Carols of Christmas," without comment. The Poston arrangement has also been sung by the San Francisco Bach Choir in a 'Sing We Nowell' concert. The Poston music, arr. Bradley Nelson, has been published by Glade Music, www.glademusic.com/appletree.htm, "suggested use: Christmas, general."

It has been set to music by Colin Mawby, who calls it a metaphorical text, his music incorporating use of the plainsong "Vexilla Regis" (Mel Bay Publications). Does anyone know this version?

Another setting has been made by J. J. Hutchings, an anthem for trebles, Portsmouth, England. Partial music score here: www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=60333.

Its use in an Anglican service at the Ottawa Cathedral as a 'gradual' is shown here:
Order of Service

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: LadyJean
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 10:52 PM

I planted a December apple tree in my garden last year. It's still an apple stick, but I'm hoping for fruit in a year or so. The breed is supposed to be very old. And it is supposed to fruit in December. It's also supposed to produce good cider apples. If it works (pun intended.) I'll let you know.
By the way, I like the carol, and will think about it, when I look out at my apple stick, soon to be a tree.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: SharonA
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 10:15 PM

Thread creep from tune to lyrics:

How did this song come to be connected with Christmas? I don't see any of the usual references to Christ's birth. I would've considered it a hymn. Yet masato quotes Elizabeth Poston discussing the song's "association with Christmas in the carol services and broadcasts of the choir of King's College, Cambridge." Wonder why they associated it with Christmas. I doubt that it has anything to do with the lore of the Tannenbaum, which if I'm not mistaken (and I certainly may be!) was always an evergreen, not a deciduous fruit tree. How did a fruit tree come to be described in verse as "always green", and thus compared with the ever-constant love of Christ, anyway??

Also, how did the Apple Tree come to invoke (again in Poston's words) "the imagery of the Tree of Life"? The apple has been represented as the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (the forbidden fruit) in lore and in art, but I've never before heard of it being associated with the Tree of Life. Anybody know the history of how this came to be?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 10:12 PM

Hope to hear it!

~S~

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 07 Jan 06 - 09:46 PM

I've made a MIDI of all three parts of this song, as printed in the facsimile edition. I did some transposing, because the original parts were so high.

If the Mudcat MIDI system is working okay, you will hear the tune twice, once with melody alone, and then again with all three parts. Enjoy.

The editor says that the words were by Jeremiah Ingalls and the tune was the Quick Step from the pantomime 'Oscar and Malvina.'

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: Ron Davies
Date: 06 Jan 06 - 05:28 AM

Q--

Thanks so much. I didn't even realize she was English.   As I said, she certainly did capture the flavor of early American music in this piece.

I sure hope more of her songs are published soon.

Ron

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: wysiwyg
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 12:21 PM

Leenia, try the Tune-a-Tron's ABC Convert-A-Matic. The tune's a bit fast, but you can save and then open the resulting MIDI in a notation program, and slow it down.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 11:55 AM

I've put a reserve on the 1805 book and if they actually find it, I will post the tune as a MIDI. God willing.

I tried playing the ABC, but it didn't seem the same. I'm not familiar with ABC's. What's the difference between a small letter and a capital letter?

Watch this thread for the new MIDI.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 11:06 PM

During WW2, she worked for the BBC in London, Director of Music for European Broadcasting. It is said that some of her records were used to send coded messages.
Published Penguin Book of American Folksong and Cambridge Hymnal, also a book of French folksong.

http://crbell.orpheusweb.co.uk/fofconlyc/ep/poston.html
Poston

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 10:49 PM

Also, do you have any details on the spy angle?--sounds fascinating.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 10:48 PM

One of my groups has this on a Christmas CD--and we've sung it at the Kennedy Center. It's a wonderfully simple song, which, I believe, captures the flavor of Sacred Harp and other 18th and early 19th century American music, even though she obviously wrote it in the 20th century.

I listen to it often this time of year--I far prefer this kind of song to the cast-of-thousands-plus- orchestra O Come All Ye Faithful or something similar.

Subject: Tune Add: CHRIST THE APPLETREE
From: masato sakurai
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 01:09 PM

From George Pullen Jackson's Another Sheaf of White Spirituals ([1952]; Folklorica, 1981, p. 78):

X:1
T:Christ the Appletree
M:2/4
L:1/8
K:C
S:Christian Harmony (Ingalls, 1805), p. 81
G|C/D/ E/F/ G G|c B c c|B A G/A/ G/F/|
w:The tree_ of_ life my soul hath seen, La-den with fruit_ and_
E C C G|G d d d |e c c G|
w:al-ways green, The trees of na-ture fruit-less be Com-
G d d d|e c c G|c A A A|
w:par'd with Christ, the ap-ple-tree. His beau-ty doth all
B G G G|c A A A|B G G c|
w:things ex-cel; By faith I know, but ne'er can tell; His
g e e e|f d d d|g e e e|
w:beau-ty doth all things ex-cel; By faith I know, but
f d d d |g g/e/ a a/f/|g g/e/ d d|
w:ne'er can tell The glo-ry_ which I_ now can_ see In
c/d/ e/f/ g/Ha/ g/f/|e c c ||
w:Je - sus_ Christ,_ the_ ap-ple-tree.

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To play or display ABC tunes, try concertina.net

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Click to play

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: masato sakurai
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 12:28 PM

According to The Hymn Tune Index,

a hymn with words of "The tree of life my soul hath seen, laden with fruit and always green" is in:

Ingalls, Jeremiah. The Christian Harmony. Exeter, Newhampshire: Henry Ranlet, for the compiler, 1805.

HTI Code: 10972
Tune Description: 51(2)3(4)555U1D7 - U1D765(6)5(4)311 - 55U222311 - 1D5U222311 - D5U1D666755 - 5U1D666755 - [U25333422 - 25333422] - 255(3)66(4)55(3)2 - 21(2)3(4)5(6)5(4)321   
Meter: 8.8.8.8.8.8.0.0.8.8       Mode: major    1 citation, in 1805

Definitely not Poston's tune.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 12:17 PM

The pvblic library still has the book.

The Christian harmony : or Songster's companion
    Ingalls, Jeremiah, 1764-1838.

Publisher: DaCapo Press,
Pub Date: 1981.
Pages: xii, 199 p. ;
ISBN: 0306796171

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 12:05 PM

I don't know what tune Ms. Postern used (or wrote), but I have in my files a xerox from Christian Harmony, 1805, which has words, tune, and two harmony parts for this song. I got the book, which is an exact duplicate of the original, from my public library. Or maybe I should say "pvblic library."

The first words are:

The tree of life my foul has feen...

The tune is jollier than the tune on the site which Masato found. It also does not repeat the first two lines. Rather, the refrain turns into a canon.

I believe that the intro to the book said that the tune would have been around before Joshua put the words to it.


I would post the tune, but I've lost the second page.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: masato sakurai
Date: 03 Jan 06 - 10:54 PM

Artful Codger, Poston printed her name as the composer (not as the arranger) under the title on p. 93. The date is not given. She also included this carol in her other songbook (The Children's Song Book, p.58; "The Apple Tree").

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: wysiwyg
Date: 03 Jan 06 - 10:33 PM

Tune as sung in the MP3 above by the Rankins sounds a bit like "Both Sides Now" from Judy Collins. Nice arrangement.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: Artful Codger
Date: 03 Jan 06 - 10:12 PM

Ms. Poston was a highly regarded composer, and the pages I browsed said she wrote the tune--there was no mention of a traditional tune on which it was based, and this song is singled out as her best-known work. In fact, some commented that one might be surprised the tune was actually written in modern times.

I have this song on the CD "Christmas Echoes, Vol. 2", by the Dale Warland Singers. The liner notes mention which songs are traditional and who prepared the arrangement. For this song, they say:

3. Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
Elizabeth Poston
(c) by the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society, Ltd.

The simple attribution is the same as for other composed works, where the composer's original scoring is used.


Masato, I'm curious: Did Ms. Poston credit herself in any way in the SPBoCC?

And thanks for the MIDI link--I wouldn't have posted the tune myself, given the question of copyright (and my inherent laziness).

Apparently, Ms. Poston was also a spy of sorts, who sent coded messages by means of gramophone recordings--they still won't release the details. I wonder whether there's a message encoded in this song? ;-}

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jan 06 - 09:22 PM

http://www.christmas-tree.ca/music/apple.html

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: masato sakurai
Date: 03 Jan 06 - 08:31 PM

Elizabeth Poston wrote in her Second Penguin Book of Christmas Carols (p. 28):

Suitable for all times and seasons, this song is not specifically a Christmas song. It is included here because of its association with Christmas in the carol services and broadcasts of the choir of King's College, Cambridge, who have also recorded it (EMI ALP/ASD 2290). The beautiful visionary words in the imagery of the Tree of Life are printed without tune in Johua Smith's Divine Hymns or Spiritual Songs, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1784.

Tune (midi & score) of "Jesus Christ, The Apple Tree" is here, where it is said to be "traditional."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jesus Christ the apple tree
From: wysiwyg
Date: 03 Jan 06 - 08:07 PM

Wonderful text-- do you have the tune?

~Susan

Subject: Lyr Req: JESUS CHRIST THE APPLE TREE
From: Artful Codger
Date: 03 Jan 06 - 07:44 PM

Noticed this carol wasn't in the DT, and the words don't appear to have been posted elsewhere, so...


JESUS CHRIST THE APPLE TREE

From Divine Hymns or Spiritual Songs,
compiled by Joshua Smith, New Hampshire, 1784
Tune by Elizabeth Poston, 1905-1987

1. The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.

2. His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

3. For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

4. I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest awhile:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

5. This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

[In Ms. Poston's song, the first two lines of each verse are repeated: ABABCD. I don't know when she composed the tune, but I believe it's an original one and still protected by copyright.]

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Click to play

(from leeneia)