‘Rise heart; thy Lord is risen’

After Lent’s long flatness and sinking into bitter hollowness in Holy Week, especially on Good Friday (which this year, for the first time I can remember, was not shrouded in pallid cloud at three o’clock), Easter has dawned upon us.  Happy Feast!

Here is a setting by Ralph Vaughan Williams (again, sorry) of fitting words by George Herbert:
  

Easter.

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen.  Sing his praise
                                                  Without delayes,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
                                                  With him mayst rise:
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more, just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
                                                  With all thy art.
The crosse taught all wood to resound his name,
                                                  Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
                                                  Pleasant and long:
Or, since all musick is but three parts vied
                                                  And multiplied,
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,

And make up our defects with his sweet art.

George Herbert (1593–1633)

I cannot resist including another monunental rendition of the same music at the Royal Albert Hall in London on the Last Night of the Proms in 2004: