Some Very Old Words Rediscovered

Susan Quittmeyer Morris and I were music students together at Illinois Wesleyan University in the 70's.  In December of 1973 she gave me a little handwritten Christmas greeting with these words by Scottish poet William Dunbar (1460 - 1520?).  I had tucked this away thinking I might someday set it to music.  The day has come!  I just finished this little carol for mixed chorus and piano on Dunbar's final stanza of On The Nativity of Christ:

"Sing, hevin imperial, most of hicht! Regions of air mak armony! All fish in flud and fowl of flicht Be mirthful and mak melody! All Gloria in excelsis cry!  Heaven, erd, se, man bird, and best, He that is crownit abone the sky Pro nobis Puer natus est!"