Going through John de Luca’s New Living Parish Hymn Book is an introduction to me of some traditional Catholic Hymns that I have never come across before.
This one is a Lenten Eucharistic hymn with a C18 Italian text by St. Alphonsus Liguori (Viva! Viva! Gesu) translated by Frederick William Faber (C19) and here set to INNSBRUCK by Heinrich Isaac, a very old tune − early C16!
Godsongs has commentary.
My backing is more fake BIAB organ using made up chords derived from the organ music.
1 Hail! Jesus, hail! who for my sake
Frail flesh from Mary’s womb did take,
And shed you blood for me:
Oh, blessed be my Saviour’s blood,
My life, my light, my only good,
To all eternity.
2 To endless ages let us praise
The precious blood, whose price could raise
The world from wrath and sin;
Whose streams our inward thirst appease
And heal the sinner’s worst disease,
If he but bathe therein.
3 O, sweetest blood that can implore
Pardon of God, and heaven restore,
The heav’n which sin had lost;
While Abel’s blood for vengeance pleads,
What Jesus shed still intercedes
For those who wrong Him most.
4 Oh, to be numbered with the throng
Of those who chant the angel’s song,
And at the Lamb’s feast sing:
The multitude of those washed clean
In Jesus’s blood, a host unseen,
Yet closest to the King.
5 Ah, there is joy amid the saints,
And hell’s despairing courage faints,
When this sweet song we raise:
Oh, louder, then, and louder still,
Earth with one mighty chorus fill,
Earth with one mighty chorus fill,
The precious blood to praise!
Some proper organ:
