Hymn of the Month for December 2006

#296: "O Ye Who Taste That Love Is Sweet"

A favorite of our choir, Larking About, this lovely hymn has words by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894), and is set to a French melody from around 1500. According to Between the Lines:

This tune is probably the original melody for the text written by Jean Tisserand, a Franciscan monk, who died in Paris in 1494. The melody was first printed in Airs sur les hymnes sacrez, odes et noels, Paris, 1623.

Also from Between the Lines:

Christina Rossetti was an English poet, known for short, intense lyrics such as these [in reference to her words to our hymn #241, "In the Bleak Midwinter"]. She was the daughter of the exiled Italian patriot and writer Gabriele Rossetti, and the sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, poet and painter.

She was, with her brother, a member of the Pre-Raphaelite art movement in England.

The hymn's words are composed of the final three stanzas of Rossetti's poem, "What Good Shall My Life Do Me?"

No hope in life: yet is there hope
In death, the threshold of man's scope.
Man yearneth (as the heliotrop

For ever seeks the sun) through light,
Through dark, for Love: all, read aright,
Is Love, for Love is infinite.

Shall not this infinite Love suffice
To feed thy dearth? Lift heart and eyes
Up to the hills, grow glad and wise.

The hills are glad because the sun
Kisses their round tops every one
Where silver fountains laugh and run:

Smooth pebbles shine beneath : beside,
The grass, mere green, grows myriad-eyed
With pomp of blossoms veined or pied.

So every nest is glad whereon
The sun in tender strength has shone
So every fruit he glows upon:

So every valley depth, whose heards
At pasture praise him without words:
So the winged ecstasies of birds.

If there be any such thing, what
Is there by sunlight betters not?
Nothing except dead things that rot.

Thou then who are not dead, and fit,
Like blasted tree beside the pit,
But for the axe that levels it,

Living show life of Love, whereof
The force wields earth and heaven above:
Who knows not Love begetteth Love?

Love in the gracious rain distils :
Love moves the subtle fountain-rills
To fertilize uplifted hills,

And seedful valleys fertilize:
Love stills the hungry lion's cries,
And the young raven satisfies:

Love hangs this earth in space: Love rolls
Fair world rejoicing on their poles,
And girds them round with aureoles:

Love lights the sun: Love through the dark
Lights the moon's evanescent arc:
Same Love lights up the glow-worm's spark:

Love rears the great: Love tends the small:
Breaks off the yoke, breaks down the wall:
Accepteth all, fulfilleth all.

O ye who taste that Love is sweet,
Set waymarks for the doubtful feet
That stumble on in search of it.

Sing hyms of Love, that those who hear
Far off in pain may lend an ear,
Rise up and wonder and draw near.

Lead lives of Love, that others who
Behold your lives may kindle too
With love and cast their lots with you.

27 August 1859 - Christia Rossetti