Alleluia! Song of Gladness

Alleluia, song of gladness, Voice of everlasting joy

Published in 17 hymnals

Audio files: MIDI

Representative Text

1 Alleluia! Song of gladness,
Voice of everlasting joy;
Alleluia! Sound the sweetest
Heard among the choirs on high,
Hymning in God's blissful mansion
Day and night incessantly.

2 Alleluia! Church victorious,
Thou may'st lift the joyful strain:
Alleluia! Songs of triumph
Well befit the ransomed train.
Faint and feeble are our praises
While in exile we remain.

3 Alleluia! Songs of gladness
Suit not always souls forlorn;
Alleluia! Sounds of sadness
'Midst our joyful strains are borne;
For in this dark world of sorrow
We with tears our sins must mourn.

4 Praises with our prayers uniting,
Hear us, blessèd Trinity;
Bring us to Thy blissful presence,
There the Paschal Lamb to see,
There to Thee our Alleluia
Singing everlastingly.

Amen.

Source: Common Service Book of the Lutheran Church #57

Text Information

First Line: Alleluia, song of gladness, Voice of everlasting joy
Title: Alleluia! Song of Gladness
Source: Cooke and Denton's Hymnal
Language: English
Publication Date: 1883
Copyright: Public Domain

Notes

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 tr. 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.

5. Alleluia! song of gladness, Voice of everlasting joy. This translation appeared in Cooke and Denton's Hymnal, 1853, No. 44. It is based upon Chandler; but it has so much in it that is new, that practically it is a fresh translation. In 1857 it was included in the Winchester Church Hymn Book, No. 247, and subsequently in Barry; Snepp's Songs of Grace & Glory; Hymnal Companion; the Stoke Hymn Book, and others. It is also given, but somewhat altered in the Parish Hymn Book; the R.T.S.'s Hymns No. 337; and the New Congregational Hymn Book, No. 725. In some of these it is ascribed to Dr. Neale in error.

The close resemblance of these translations to each other has made the annotations a task of some difficulty. By far the greater number of compilers have worked with second-hand materials, and these, when rearranged, have produced complications in the text of the most embarrassing nature.

--Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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The Baptist Hymnal #354

Include 16 pre-1979 instances
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