Advent music day 3: We stay with yesterday's text, Rorate caeli desuper "Drop down, ye heavens, from above" for Byrd's choral settings of the next verse, which portray beautifully the longing of the Church through the ages for the grace of God and the coming of the Messiah:
Be not wroth very sore, O Lord,
neither remember iniquity forever:
Thy holy cities are a wilderness,
Sion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation:
Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praisèd thee
The eagle-eared will notice an extra line: Ecce respice populus tuus omnes nos, 'Behold, we are all your people.'