“Chori Cantores Hierusalem Novae.”
St. Fulbert's hymn is a worthy companion of Perronet's “Coronation”—if, indeed, it was not 86 / 60 its original prompter—as King Robert's great litany was the mother song of Watts' “Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove;” and the countless other sacred lyrics beginning with similar words. As the translation stands in the Church of England, there are six stanzas now sung, though in America but four appear, and not in the same sequence. The first four of the six in their regular succession are as follows:
Ye choirs of New Jerusalem,
Your sweetest notes employ,
The Paschal victory to hymn
In strains of holy joy.
For Judah's Lion bursts His chains,
Crushing the serpent's head;
And cries aloud, through death's domains
To wake the imprisoned dead.