Ride On, Ride On in Majesty: Palm Sunday Hymn

Lyrics

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
Hark! all the tribes hosanna cry;
O Savior meek, pursue Thy road,
With palms and scattered garments strowed.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
O Christ, Thy triumphs now begin
O'er captive death and conquered sin.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
The wingèd squadrons of the sky
Look down with sad and wond'ring eyes
To see th' approaching sacrifice.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
Thy last and fiercest strife is nigh;
The Father on His sapphire throne
Expects His own anointed Son.

Ride on! ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
Bow Thy meek head to mortal pain,
Then take, O God, Thy pow'r, and reign.

History

Henry Hart Milman wrote this text in 1820 during his early ministry as an Anglican priest. Milman was born in London on February 10, 1791, educated at Eton and Brasenose College, Oxford, and ordained in the Church of England in 1816. At the time he wrote this hymn, he served as vicar of St. Mary's, Reading (appointed 1818).

The hymn remained unpublished until 1827, when it appeared in Bishop Reginald Heber's posthumous collection Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year. Heber and Milman had met in 1823, before Heber became Bishop of Calcutta, and Milman contributed thirteen hymns to Heber's project. The text was designated for Palm Sunday (the Sixth Sunday in Lent) and was positioned as the first of two hymns for that day. Milman later included it as the opening hymn in his own Selection of Psalms and Hymns (1837).

The original first stanza proved controversial. The line "Thine humble beast pursues his road" troubled many editors. In 1852, John Murray's Hymnal changed it to "O Saviour meek, pursue Thy road," which was adopted by Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861) and many other collections. Some hymnals, beginning with H.V. Elliott's Psalms and Hymns (1835), simply omitted the first stanza entirely, though the Church of England's Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Church Hymns (1871) followed this practice. The unaltered text later appeared in the English Hymnal (1906). By 1907, John Julian declared in his Dictionary of Hymnology that this was the most popular Palm Sunday hymn in the English language. Milman went on to become Professor of Poetry at Oxford (1821), Canon of Westminster (1835), and Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral (1849), where he served until his death on September 24, 1868.

Sources: Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology - Ride on! ride on in majesty; Hymnary.org - Ride on! ride on in majesty!; Hymnology Archive - Ride on, ride on in majesty; Encyclopedia.com - Henry Hart Milman; Wikipedia - Henry Hart Milman

Performance

The most common tune for this text in Anglican worship is ST. DROSTANE, composed by John Bacchus Dykes in 1862. Dykes was born in Kingston-upon-Hull, England, in 1823, the grandson of an Anglican vicar. He studied at St. Catherine's College, Cambridge, and was ordained in the Church of England in 1847. From 1849 he served as precentor and choir director at Durham Cathedral, where he reformed the musical life by requiring consistent attendance and increasing rehearsals. In 1862 he became vicar of St. Oswald in Durham, serving until his death in 1876.

ST. DROSTANE first appeared in R.R. Chope's Congregational Hymn and Tune Book (1862), where it was named in the index after St. Drostan, a seventh-century disciple of St. Columba known for his work in Ireland and Scotland. The tune gained wider acceptance when it replaced WINCHESTER NEW in the second edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1875), establishing it as the standard Anglican setting. The tune opens with a leap of a fourth, similar to WINCHESTER NEW, creating an immediate sense of proclamation. Hymnologist Carl Daw observed that while the musical phrases show some lack of cohesion, "the tune ends well by coming to rest on the mediant, rather than resolving to the tonic—a feature that leaves the hymn somewhat open-ended, as befits the beginning of the Holy Week story." This unresolved ending subtly suggests that the Palm Sunday narrative continues into the passion.

An alternative tune, WINCHESTER NEW, has particular significance in Anglican liturgy, especially in the United Kingdom. The tune originated in Georg Wittwe's Musikalisches Handbuch der geistlichen Melodien (Hamburg, 1690), where it was set to "Wer nur den lieben Gott." William Henry Havergal (1793-1870), an Anglican clergyman and composer, adapted the German chorale into an English Long Meter setting in the 1864 edition of his Old Church Psalmody. Havergal served as Rector of St. Nicholas, Worcester (1842-1860), and was Honorary Canon of Worcester Cathedral. WINCHESTER NEW appeared with Milman's text in the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861), though it was later replaced by ST. DROSTANE.

A third tune, THE KING'S MAJESTY, was composed specifically for this text by Graham George (1912-1993), an English-Canadian composer and organist. George wrote the tune in 1939 while serving at St. Peter's Church, Sherbrooke, Quebec. He explained: "It originated as the result of a choir-practice before Palm Sunday in, I suppose, 1939, during which I had been thinking, WINCHESTER NEW is a fine tune, but it has nothing to do whatever to do with the 'tragic trumpets,' as one might theatrically call them, of Palm Sunday." George's tune in E minor provides a more somber, processional character that emphasizes the passion elements of the text. In Anglican liturgical practice, these tunes are typically performed during Palm Sunday processions, with ST. DROSTANE preferred in many Episcopal and Anglican churches. Organ registration should support processional movement while allowing the text to be clearly heard, with moderate tempo (♩ = 88-100) and legato phrasing that emphasizes the hymn's dramatic progression.

Sources: Hymnary.org - ST. DROSTANE; Hymnology Archive - John Bacchus Dykes; Hymnary.org - WINCHESTER NEW; Wikipedia - William Henry Havergal; Hymnology Archive - William Havergal; Hymnary.org - THE KING'S MAJESTY; The Canadian Encyclopedia - Graham George; Hymnology Archive - Ride on, ride on in majesty (tune history)

Notes

Included in major Anglican hymnals: Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861, 1875, and subsequent editions), The English Hymnal (1906), The Hymnal 1982 (Episcopal Church USA #156), Common Praise (Church of England), Ancient and Modern (2013 edition)
The hymn appears in The Hymnal 1982 with the original first stanza intact ("Thy humble beast pursues his road"), preserving Milman's original text
Hymns Ancient and Modern has historically offered both ST. DROSTANE and WINCHESTER NEW as tune options
The text has been translated into multiple languages and appears in German Catholic and Protestant hymnals
Used extensively in Anglican cathedral and parish worship during Holy Week
Particularly suitable for Palm Sunday processions with choir and congregation
The Hymnal 1982 Companion notes the hymn's combination of "meekness and majesty, sacrifice and conquest, suffering and glory—all central to the gospel for Palm Sunday"
John Julian (1907) identified it as the most popular Palm Sunday hymn in English
Dykes served as joint editor of Hymns Ancient and Modern, which helped establish his tunes in Anglican worship
WINCHESTER NEW is also commonly paired with "On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry" for Advent use
The unresolved musical ending of ST. DROSTANE musically reinforces the theological theme that Palm Sunday begins a narrative continued through Holy Week