free variable

I got me flowers to straw Thy way,
I got me boughs off many a tree;
But Thou wast up by break of day,
And brought’st Thy sweets along with Thee.

The sunne arising in the East,
Though he give light, and th’ East perfume,
If they should offer to contest
With Thy arising, they presume.

Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavour?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever

Herbert’s text certainly needs little else, but Ralph Vaughan Williams’ setting for baritone, chorus, and orchestra is quite nice.

Since I am keen to avoid the appearance of insufficient doctrinal partisanship,
here’s a little something for my fellow Lutherans in the audience.