At our Advent Lessons and Carols last evening both the adult and children’s choir sang Elizabeth Poston’s carol, Jesus Christ the Apple Tree – a carol we’ve not heard at Holy Comforter in some time (thank you to Michael Painter for choosing it). Poston credits the poem to a New Englander named Joshua Smith (1784). Her hauntingly beautiful setting is extraordinary and it moved me deeply last night. The last two verses are worth quoting for this third week of Advent:
I’m weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest a while:
I’m weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest a while:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive:
This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive:
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.
Here is the choir of Kings College Cambridge singing it in about 1993:
