The gristmill it lay rended

From the way the tree was felled

Heard the newborn foundling

And the nascent mother yell

The snow had fallen heavy

From the weight the birches swayed

He was born on Christmas morning

And she died on Christmas Day

The millpond it sat frozen

Through the ice we fished with twine

Built a crib from broken birch

And a pall of yuletide pine

The soil was set and stony

Dug through frost some two feet down

We nursed him from the calving quey

And placed her in the ground

Round, round well then from this world we’re bound

For unknown shores on seas of gray

Sing, sing, can you hear them echoes ring?

That’s the sound of our Lord’s confounding way

 The Millwright was a shepherd

Self-described man of The Word

Sang the boy’s baptismal

As he wept for the interred

The Journeyman, a preacher’s son

A boy of just fifteen

Stared with his strange countenance

At all that he had seen

Clean, clean as our spirits slowly wean

From night and its dark addled fray

Sing, sing, can you hear them echoes ring?

That’s the sound of our Lord’s confounding way

The table it was set

With all the blessings we could bear

A Christmas feast and funeral meal 

A bitter-sweet affair

To the child his life was given

And though his mother’s took away

It was true a Christmas wonder

In theLord’s confounding way

Say, say as the final trumpet plays

The song of our never ending days

Sing, sing, can you hear them echoes ring?

That’s the sound of our Lord’s confounding way