Alleluia! Sing to Jesus

Lyrics

Alleluia, sing to Jesus!
his the sceptre, his the throne;
Alleluia, his the triumph,
his the victory alone:
hark, the songs of peaceful Sion
thunder like a mighty flood;
Jesus out of every nation
hath redeemed us by his blood.

Alleluia, not as orphans
are we left in sorrow now;
Alleluia, he is near us,
faith believes, nor questions how:
though the cloud from sight received him,
when the forty days were o'er,
shall our hearts forget his promise,
'I am with you evermore'?

Alleluia, bread of angels,
thou on earth our food, our stay;
Alleluia, here the sinful
flee to thee from day to day:
Intercessor, Friend of sinners,
earth's Redeemer, plead for me,
where the songs of all the sinless
sweep across the crystal sea.

Alleluia, King eternal,
thee the Lord of lords we own;
Alleluia, born of Mary,
earth thy footstool, heaven thy throne:
thou within the veil hast entered,
robed in flesh, our great High Priest;
thou on earth both Priest and Victim
in the eucharistic feast.

History

"Alleluia! Sing to Jesus" was written by William Chatterton Dix, born in Bristol in 1837, who died at Cheddar, Somerset, in 1898. Unlike most British hymn writers of his century he was not a clergyman: he trained in business and managed a marine insurance company in Glasgow. He published Hymns of Love and Joy (1861) and Altar Songs (1867), and many of his texts first appeared in Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861).

This hymn is dated to 1866, and Dix first gave it the title "Redemption through the Precious Blood", based on Revelation 5:9. It was written as a Eucharistic hymn for Ascension Sunday, because Dix felt that Church of England hymnals contained too few hymns on the Eucharist; it is also commonly sung at Easter. Another source instead credits the text to Altar Songs (1867), so the exact year and first printing are not settled.

The words are in 8.7.8.7 D metre and are most often sung to HYFRYDOL, a tune by Rowland Huw Prichard. Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876) composed a tune named ALLELUIA specifically for the text in 1868 (it is also linked to the European Psalmist, 1872), and ADORATION (Bertram Luard-Selby, 1904) and LOWELL (H. Ernest Nichol, 1905) are further alternatives.

Performance

The page's video, titled "Alleluia sing to Jesus - St. Martin's Voices, Worship lyric video with motion background", runs about 4 minutes 26 seconds and was published to the St Peter's YouTube channel on 2 May 2023. Its description names the artist as St Martin's Voices, St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · hymnary.org · St Martin's Voices recording and Words book