What Child Is This

Starfield's reading keeps William Chatterton Dix's three original verses in full, opening with the same question every version of this carol asks first: "what Child is this, who laid to rest, on Mary's lap is sleeping?"

The second verse answers with the manger's low setting rather than looking away from it: "why lies He in such mean estate, where ox and ass are feeding?" — the poverty of the scene treated as the point, not an embarrassment to smooth over.

"So bring Him incense, gold and myrrh, come peasant, king, to own Him" widens the invitation to everyone regardless of rank, and "the King of Kings, salvation brings" closes the carol on the same claim it's been building toward since the first question. Nearly a century and a half after Dix wrote it, the song still answers its own opening line the same way.