Christ the Lord is risen today!/ Christians haste

Christ the Lord is risen today!/ Christians haste your vows to pay.  Jane Eliza Leeson* (1808-1881). This splendid version of ‘Victimae Paschali’* was first published in Sir Henry Formby and J. Lambert’s Collection of Catholic Hymns, for the use of Choirs and Congregations (1853) (JJ gives 1851 as the date, p. 1223). It had four 8-line stanzas. Three were included in the First Edition of A&M (1861), omitting Leeson’s stanza 3: Say, O wondering Mary, say, What thou sawest on the way. ‘I beheld, where Christ had lain, Empty tomb and angels twain, I beheld the glory bright Of the rising Lord of light; Christ my hope is risen again; Now he lives, and lives to reign.’ This stanza translates...