Alleluia, dulce carmen. [Week before Septuagesima.] The earliest form in which this hymn is found is in three manuscripts of the 11th century in the British Museum. From a Durham manuscript of the 11th century, it was published in the Latin Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church (Surtees Society), 1851, p. 55. The text is in Daniel, i. No. 263, and with further readings in iv. p. 152; and in the Hymnarium Sarisuriense, 1851, p. 59. [Rev. W. A. Shoults, B.D.]
Translations in common use:—
1. Alleluia! best and sweetest. Of the hymns of praise above. By J. Chandler, first published in his Hymns of the Primitive Church, 1837, No. 59, in 4 stanzas of 6 lines, as the first of two renderings of the hymn. This translation is found in a great number of collections with the first two lines complete, but usually with a few alterations in the rest of the hymn.
--Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)