Dass wir dir singen früh und spat:
Hallelujah!
An Easter song, based on I Cor. 5:7, 8 and Rev. 19:6:
For even Christ our passover suffered for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Alleluia! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
Weisse’s poem is based on “Christ is erstanden von der Martyr alle,” the oldest German Easter hymn, found in four versions as early as the 12th century.
Michael Weisse, born at Neisse, Silesia, about 1480, became a priest, and for a time was a monk at Breslau. Influenced by the writings of Luther, he left the monastery to join the Bohemian Brethren, the followers of John Hus, and became their pastor at Landskron and Fulneck, Moravia. Weisse was a man of great influence among the Brethren and was appointed a member of their council. Of a deeply spiritual nature and possessing rare poetic gifts, he translated the old songs of the Bohemian Brethren into German and composed many original poems. He edited the first Brethren hymnbook in German, Ein Neu Gesengbuchlen, 1531, in which the present hymn first appeared. The book, proclaimed by Luther as “the work of a good poet,” contains 155 hymns, all apparently either translations or originals by Weisse himself.
Our translation is by Catherine Winkworth, with stanza 4 omitted.
For comments on Miss Winkworth see [Hymn 236].
MUSIC. MACHE DICH, MEIN GEIST, BEREIT is an adaptation of a chorale tune, “Straf mich nicht,” published in Kirch- und Hausbuch, Dresden, 1694. The composer is not known. Refrains are not commonly used with German chorales. The present setting of the tune and words, with a refrain, was made by the editors especially for the Hymnary. It is suitable for children’s choirs as well as for congregational use.