Who wrote the poem set by Peter Warlock in the carol "Bethlehem Down"?

Bruce Blunt wrote the poem set by Peter Warlock in the carol “Bethlehem Down.”

Blunt was an English poet, journalist and wine writer who collaborated with Warlock, the pseudonym of composer Philip Heseltine. The two men created the carol in 1927 when they were short of money and hoped a successful Christmas piece would finance what Blunt later called an “immortal carouse.”

Blunt conceived the words during a nighttime walk between pubs in Hampshire and sent them to Warlock, who set them to music within a few days. Their entry won The Daily Telegraph’s annual Christmas carol competition and was published in the newspaper on 24 December 1927.

The poem takes an unusually sombre, foreshadowing approach to the Nativity. It contrasts gifts for a king with myrrh for embalming and wood for a crown, suggesting Christ’s future suffering. Warlock’s original version is an unaccompanied SATB setting in D minor, marked by modal harmony and chromatic colour.