Earth Has Many a Noble City

405 Earth Has Many a Noble City

1 Earth has many a noble city;
   Bethlehem, thou dost all excel:
   out of thee the Lord from heaven
   came to rule his Israel.

2 Fairer than the sun at morning
   was the star that told his birth,
   to the world its God announcing
   seen in fleshly form on earth.

3 Eastern sages at his cradle
   make oblations rich and rare;
   see them give, in deep devotion,
   gold and frankincense and myrrh.

4 Sacred gifts of mystic meaning:
   incense doth their God disclose,
   gold the King of kings proclaimeth,
   myrrh his sepulcher foreshows.

5 Jesus, whom the Gentiles worshipped
   at thy glad epiphany,
   unto thee, with God the Father
   and the Spirit, glory be.
                         Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (348– ca. 413)
                         Trans. by Edward Caswall
                         The Methodist Hymnal, 1964 edition

<idle musing>
I don't recall ever singing this one, or even hearing it sung. It only occurs in about 60 hymnals. You should take a look at the biography of the author. He is sometimes called the Christian Pindar, but we know almost nothing about him.
</idle musing>