Now the green blade riseth

This has always been one of my very favorite Easter hymns,

The music is the famous French carol, "Noël nouvelet," and is the same tune set by Marcek Dupre in his "Variations on a Noël."

The harmonization is by Martin Edward Fallas Shaw OBE FRCM (9 March 1875 – 24 October 1958), English composer, conductor and (in his early life) theatre producer. His over 300 published works include songs, hymns, carols, oratorios, several instrumental works, a congregational mass setting (the Anglican Folk Mass) and four operas including a ballad opera.

The wonderful text is by John Macleod Campbell Crum (1872-1958). He was a graduate of New College, Oxford (BA 1895, MA 1901), ordained as a deacon in 1897, and priest in 1900.

The score is attached below, as well as a photo of Martin Shaw.

(There is NO introduction.)

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days hath lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead hath been:
Love is come again,
Like wheat that springeth green.

In the grave they laid him, Love whom men hath slain,
Thinking that never he would wake again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again,
Like wheat that springeth green.

Forth he came at Easter, with the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave hath lain,
Quick from the dead, my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again,
Like wheat that springeth green.

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Thy touch can call us back to life again,
Fields of our hearts, that dead and bear have been:
Love is come again,
Like wheat that springeth green.