Rebecca L. Abbott: Visual Hymn Note #3, 'O Blessed Spring'

0:39 Sung first stanza
1:12 Meter: Long Meter?—or, instead, eight lines of four syllables?
3:00 Five places where thought carries across line
5:42 Overview of overall structure
6:16 Memory work on first stanza
7:08 Sing-along performance of all five stanzas

(Note: I said in the recording that we would be using the setting found at Lutheran Service Book #595. Actually, I used only the text found there and just improvised my own accompaniment based on the public-domain tune.)

Text copyright @ 1993 Susan Palo Cherwien; tune public domain. Admin. Augsburg Fortress. Posted by permission.

Stanza 1: O blessed spring, where Word and sign / Embrace us into Christ the vine: / Here Christ enjoins each one to be / A branch of this life-giving Tree.

Stanza 2: Through summer heat of youthful years, / Uncertain faith, rebellious tears, / Sustained by Christ’s infusing rain, / The boughs will shout for joy again.

Stanza 3: When autumn cools and youth is cold, / When limbs their heavy harvest hold, / Then through us, warm, the Christ will move / With gifts of beauty, wisdom, love.

Stanza 4: As winter comes, as winters must, / We breathe our last, return to dust; / Still held in Christ, our souls take wing / And trust the promise of the spring.

Stanza 5: Christ, holy Vine, Christ, living Tree, / Be praised for this blest mystery: / That Word and water thus revive / And join us to Your Tree of Life.