Crown of Thorns - Wells Cathedral Choir video free download

Wells Cathedral Choir sing Crown of Thorns by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

The song tells about Jewish children stripping the rose garden bare and making a crown of thorns for Jesus.

Lyrics.

When Jesus Christ was yet a child

He had a garden small and wild,

Where-in he cherished roses fair,

And wove them into garlands there.

Now once as summertime drew nigh,

There came a troop of children by,

And seeing roses on the tree,

With shouts they plucked them merrily.

'Do you bind roses in your hair?'

They cried, in scorn, to Jesus there.

The boy said humbly: 'Take, I pray,

All but the naked thorns away,'

Then of the thorns he made a crown,

And with rough fingers pressed it down,

Till on his forehead fair and young,

Red drops of blood like roses sprung.

Based on a poem by the American poet Richard Henry Stoddard (1825-

1903)