O Root of Jesse, Thou On Whom

For Advent

December 18, called O Radix Jesse

This is one in a series of seven hymns based on The Seven Great 'O' Antiphons.

Words: "O Radix Jesse," one of the Great O Antiphons for Advent
Translation by Rev. John Mason Neale
See: O Radix Jesse by Abbott Prosper Louis Guéranger, O.S.B.

Music: "Old Melody" from The Hymnary, #121.

See: Notes on Veni, Veni, Emmanuel

Source: Rev. John Mason Neale, Hymns For Children. A Third Series. (1854), Third Edition (London: Joseph Masters, 1867), pp. 7-8.
See: Christmas in Neale's Hymns for Children

O Root of Jesse, Who standest for an ensign of the people, at Whom Kings shall shut their mouths, unto Whom the Gentiles shall pray: Come, and deliver us, and tarry not.

1. O Root of Jesse, Thou on Whom
    The Holy Ghost shall rest;
Whose boughs through all the world shall bloom,
    To bless and to be blest:

2. True Vine, in Whom we must abide
    To bring forth plenteous fruit;
Whose branches, when by tempests tried,
    Are firm in Thee their Root:

3. Thou art a shadow from the heat
    That burns the thirsty ground:
A hiding-place when tempests beat
    Upon the plain around;

4. O Root of Jesse, day by day
    To Thee our prayers we send :
Come now, and through the world, we pray,
    Thy healing leaves extend.

5. We wait in faith, we wait in prayer,
    Until the happy time
Wherein Thy branches fruit shall bear
    Through every distant clime.

6. To God, by all to be adored,
    All praise and glory be ;
To Jesse’s Root, and David’s Lord,
    And, Holy Ghost, to Thee.

Sheet Music from William Cooke and Benjamin Webb, eds., The Hymnary – A Book of Church Song (London: Novello, Ewer and Co., 1872), #121, p. 101.

Notes:

Also found in Mary Sackville Lawson, et al, eds., Collected Hymns, Sequences and Carols of John Mason Neale (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914), p. 344, citing Isaiah 11:1: "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots..."  (KJV).

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