A Hymn for St. Cecilia

Howells, Herbert (1892–1983)

Voicing:
Mixed Choir → SATB

Accompaniment:
Organ

Publication Information:
Novello — No. 29-0507-08 (1961)

Text Information:
Reference: Ursula Vaughan Williams

Lyrics:

Sing for the morning’s joy, Cecilia sing,
in words of youth and phrases of the Spring,
walk the bright colonnades by fountains’ spray,
and sing as sunlight fills the waking day;
till angels, voyaging in upper air
pause on a wing and gather the clear sound
into celestial joy, wound and unwound,
a silver chain, or golden as your hair.

Sing for your loves of heaven and earth,
in words of music, each word a truth;
marriage of heart and longings that aspire,
a bond of roses, and a ring of fire.
Your summertime grows short and fades away,
terror must gather to a martyr’s death;
but never tremble, the last indrawn breath
remembers music as an echo may.

Through the cold aftermath of centuries
Cecilia’s music dances in the skies,
lend us a fragment of the immortal air,
that with your choiring angels we may share,
a word to light us thro’ time-fettered night,
water of life, or rose of paradise
so from the earth another song shall rise
to meet your own in heaven’s long delight.
(Ursula Vaughan Williams)

Submitted by: Anthony DiCello Added: Aug 25, 2022