Come, O come with sacred lays

Representative Text

1 Come, O come, our voices raise,
sounding God Almighty's praise;
hither bring in one consent
heart, and voice, and instrument.
Alleluia!

2 Sound the trumpet, touch the lute,
let no tongue nor string be mute,
nor a voiceless creature found,
that hath neither note nor sound.
Alleluia!

3 Come ye all before his face,
in this chorus take your place;
and amid the mortal throng,
be you masters of the song.
Alleluia!

4 Let, in praise of God, the sound
run a never-ending round,
that our songs of praise may be
everlasting, as is he.
Alleluia!

5 So this huge wide orb we see
shall one choir, one temple be;
where in such a praiseful tone
we will sing what he hath done.
Alleluia!

6 Thus our song shall overclimb
all the bounds of space and time;
come, then, come, our voices raise,
sounding God Almighty's praise.
Alleluia!

Source: The Hymnal 1982: according to the use of the Episcopal Church #430

Author: George Wither

Wither, George, or Wyther—spelled in both ways by himself, the first usually, the second occasionally, e.g. in Prince Henrie's Obsequies (1612), and erroneously Withers, was born on June 11th, 1588, at Bentworth, near Alton, Hampshire. He was the only son of George Wither, of Bentworth. His early education was at the Grammar School of Colemore or Colemere, under its celebrated master; John Greaves. After thorough training and discipline here he was entered in 1604 at Magdalen College, Oxford. His tutor was John Warner, subsequently D.D. and Bishop of Rochester. He had only been three years at the University when malicious and ignorant persons persuaded his father that more learning was not required. And so, as he modestly tells us in his… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: Come, O come with sacred lays
Author: George Wither
Meter: 7.7.7.7 with alleluia
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Notes

Come, 0 come with sacred [pious] lays. G. Wither. [Ps. cxlviii.] From his version of Ps. 148 in his Haleluiah, 1641, Bk. i., No. 1. It is in the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Hymns, 1852, and other collections.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907)

Tune

SALZBURG (Hintze)

The tune SALZBURG, named after the Austrian city made famous by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was first published anonymously in the nineteenth edition of Praxis Pietatis Melica (1678); in that hymnbook's twenty-fourth edition (1690) the tune was attributed to Jakob Hintze (b. Bernau, Germany, 1622; d. B…

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SONNE DER GERECHTIGKEIT (11517)

SONNE DER GERECHTIGKEIT was originally the tune to a fifteenth-century folk song, "Der reich Mann war geritten aus," and it was adopted by the Bohemian Brethren for 1566 hymnal, Kirchengeseng. The tune is thus a contrafactum, changed from the folk/court use to church use. The title is the German inc…

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TE DEUM LAUDAMUS (Stainer)


Timeline

Instances

Instances (1 - 3 of 3)

Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs #16

A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools #4

Text

The Hymnal 1982 #430

Include 21 pre-1979 instances
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