This Is The Hour
For Two-part Choir and Organ. Text by Horatius Bonar. A perfect summer anthem to sing during communion, easy and in canon: little rehearsal needed! Solos could be utilized in the unison sections and can easily be sung as a duet.
This is the hour of banquet and of song;
this is the heavenly table spread for me;
here let me feast, and feasting, still prolong
the hallowed hour of fellowship with thee.
too soon we rise; we go our several ways;
the feast, though not the love, is past and gone,
the bread and wine consumed: yet all our days
thou still art here with us, our shield and sun.
Feast after feast thus comes and passes by;
yet, passing, points to the glad feast above,
giving sweet foretaste of the festal joy,
the Lamb's great bridal feast of bliss and love.