Christopher Robinson, Cambridge, Glen Dempsey and The Choir of St John's College - A Hymn for St Cecilia

Sing for the morning's joy, Cecilia, sing
In words of youth and praises 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 of earth
In words of music, and 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

Written by:
HERBERT HOWELLS, URSULA VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

Publisher:
Lyrics © MUSIC SALES CORPORATION, Peermusic Publishing

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