Video Information

• Choir: Downtown Voices
• Piece: Take Him Earth for Cherishing
• Composer:  Herbert Howells
• Conductor:  Stephen Sands
• Voices:  SATB
• Genres: Classical
• Herbert Howells - Take him, earth, for cherishing
  Downtown Voices
  Stephen Sands, conductor
  
  Trinity Church, NYC
  
  Text translated by Helen Waddell, from a 4th-century poem by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius:
  <...  moreHerbert Howells - Take him, earth, for cherishing
  Downtown Voices
  Stephen Sands, conductor
  
  Trinity Church, NYC
  
  Text translated by Helen Waddell, from a 4th-century poem by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius:
  
  Take him, earth, for cherishing,
  to thy tender breast receive him.
  Body of a man I bring thee,
  noble even in its ruin.
  
  Once was this a spirit’s dwelling,
  by the breath of God created.
  High the heart that here was beating,
  Christ the prince of all its living.
  
  Guard him well, the dead I give thee,
  not unmindful of his creature
  shall he ask it: he who made it
  symbol of his mystery.
  
  Comes the hour God hath appointed
  to fulfil the hope of men,
  then must thou, in very fashion,
  what I give, return again.
  
  Not though ancient time decaying
  wear away these bones to sand,
  ashes that a man might measure
  in the hollow of his hand:
  
  Not though wandering winds and idle,
  drifting through the empty sky,
  scatter dust was nerve and sinew,
  is it given to man to die.
  
  Once again the shining road
  leads to ample Paradise;
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