What sweeter music can we bring
What sweeter music can we bring. Robert Herrick* (1591-1674).
From Herrick’s His Noble Numbers: or, His Pious Pieces, Wherein (amongst other things) he Sings the Birth of his Christ: and Sighes for his Saviours Suffering on the Crosse (1647). It was entitled ‘A Christmas-Carroll, sung to the King in the presence at White-Hall’, which suggests a date of composition before 1641 (the English Civil War began in 1642). The text in 1647 is divided into ‘Chor.’, followed by ‘the Song’, in irregular numbered stanzas:
Chor. What sweeter music can we bring Than a Carol, for to sing The Birth of this our heavenly King? Awake the Voice! Awake the String!...
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Chicago style (see The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Ed.)
. "What sweeter music can we bring."
The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press, accessed January 17, 2026,
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/w/what-sweeter-music-can-we-bring.