O Christ, our hope, our heart’s desire

O Christ, our hope, our heart’s desire. Latin, probably 7th or 8th century, translated by John Chandler* (1806-1876).  This anonymous Latin hymn begins ‘Jesu nostra Redemptio’*. Frost notes that it was in the Sarum Use for Compline from the vigil of the Ascension to Whitsuntide (1962, p. 222).  Chandler’s translation was in Hymns of the Primitive Church (1837), as follows:  O Christ, our hope, our heart’s desire,  Redemption’s only spring, Creator of the world art Thou,  Its Saviour and its King.  How vast the mercy and the love,  Which laid our sins on Thee: And led Thee to a cruel death,  To set Thy people free!  But now the bonds of death are burst,  The ransom hath been paid:And Thou...