What more could one want for the holiday season than a Christmas ballad with roots in the 15th century? The lyrics of “Down in Yon Forest” exist in dozens of versions, a complicated and probably unsortable manuscript tradition of mixed Middle English and Modern English: “The bells of Paradise I heard them ring.”

The song dwells in the same world of symbols as the better-known “Corpus Christi Carol,” which first appeared in written form in 1504, and “Down in Yon Forest” probably originated as a sanding down of that carol. But “Down in Yon Forest” has a compelling simplicity that makes the song its own entity — and a strangeness that breaks through the over-listened carols of the season to bring alive again the deep metaphysical mystery at the center of Christianity. 

Lovely versions of the song of can be found easily, and what makes them work is the attention they pay to the odd driving force of the verses. Without actually being a narrative, “Down in Yon Forest” moves as though it had a narrative. Its series of images — a hall, a bed, a stone, a flood, a thorn — create the sense of motion toward a goal: the birth of Christ shown as the moment that salvation entered the world. 

Down in Yon Forest
By Anonymous

Down in yon forest there stands a hall,
      The bells of Paradise I heard them ring
Covered all over with purple and pall.
      And I love my Lord Jesus above anything.

And in that hall there stands a bed,
      The bells of Paradise I heard them ring
Covered all over with scarlet so red.
      And I love my Lord Jesus above anything.

At the bed-side there stands a stone,
      The bells of Paradise I heard them ring
Where the sweet Virgin Mary has knelt upon.
      And I love my Lord Jesus above anything.

Under that bed there runs a flood,
      The bells of Paradise I heard them ring
The one half runs water, the other runs blood.
      And I love my Lord Jesus above anything.

At the bed foot there grows a thorn,
      The bells of Paradise I heard them ring
Which ever blows blossom since Adam was born.
      And I love my Lord Jesus above anything.

Over the bed the moon shines bright,
      The bells of Paradise I heard them ring
To show our Saviour was born this night.
      And I love my Lord Jesus above anything.

___________________________________________ 

With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.