Once in royal David's city

Henry John Gauntlett · words Cecil Frances Alexander · arr. Arthur Henry Mann

Choose your part: hear the opening with it lifted out of the choir, then practise it in the app. Free, and without an account.

The parts

The opening, 15 bars, on the app's piano: your part clearly, the others quietly.

With a free account, the app plays the parts sung.

Verse 1
Once in roy al Da vid's ci ty stood a low cat tle shed, where a mo ther laid her baby in a man for his bed: Ma ry was that mother mild, Je sus Christ her lit tle child.
Verse 2
He came down earth from heaven who is God Lord of all, and his shel was a sta ble, and his cra was a stall; with the poor mean and low ly lived on earth our Sa viour ho ly.
Verse 3
And our eyes at last shall see him, through his own deem ing love, for that child so dear and gen tle is our Lord heav'n a bove; and he leads his chil dren on to the place where he is gone.
Verse 4
Not in that low ly sta ble, with the ox stand ing by, we shall see but in hea ven, set at God's hand on high; when like stars chil dren crowned all in white shall wait around.

Free to sing: Henry John Gauntlett died in 1876, Arthur Henry Mann died in 1929 and Cecil Frances Alexander died in 1895.