1 Once in royal David's city
stood a lowly cattle shed,
where a mother laid her baby
in a manger for his bed.
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little child.

2 He came down to earth from heaven,
who is God and Lord of all,
and his shelter was a stable,
and his cradle was a stall.
With the poor and mean and lowly
lived on earth our Saviour holy.

3 Not in that poor lowly stable,
with the oxen standing by,
we shall see him, but in heaven,
set at God's right hand on high,
when, like stars, his children crowned
all in white shall gather round.