19 Feb 98 - 02:52 PM (#21768) Subject: Lyr Add: JERUSALEM MY HAPPY HOME From: Bruce O. Jerusalem my happy home.
Hierusalem, my happie home,
Oh happie harbour of the saintes,
In thee noe sickness may be seene,
No dampish mist is sene in thee,
There lust and lukar cannot dwell,
Hierusalem, Hierusalem,
Thy wales are made of precious stones;
Thy terrettes and thy Pinacles
Thy houses are of Ivorie,
Within thy gates noethinge doeth come
Ay my sweete home, hierusaleme,
Thy saintes are crown'd with glorie great,
Wee that are heere in banishment,
Our sweete is mixt with bitter gaule,
But there they liue in such delight,
Thy Viniardes and thy Orchardes are
Thy gardens and thy gallant walkes There is nector and Ambrosia made, There Cinomon, there sugar, growes;
[Thy happy Saints (Ierusalem)
Quyt through the streetes with siluer sound
There trees for euermore beare fruite,
There David standes, with harpe in hand,
Our Ladie sings magnificat,
Te Deum doth sant Ambrose singe,
There Magdalene hath left her mone,
Hierusalem, my happie home
"Jerusalem, my happy home" from Rollins' 'Old Engish Ballads', taken from BL MS Addl. 15,225. Rollins also, in PMLA, gave another version as "The Queristers song of yorke in praise of heaven" from the Shane MS, c 1615-26, BL MS Addl. 38,559. There is a short version in 'Shirburn Ballads', and a late unreprinted broadside copy in the Rawlinson collection at the Bodleian. One is signed F. B. P. and a few suggestions (one rather ridiculous) have been made as to who this might be (that assumes there is a name represented). The song was sung to "O man in desparation" which may or may not be the tune given in Simpson's 'The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music'. Evidence is weak.
Four verses of this song were copied into a book in the Folger Shakespeare Library, saying this was written in by a I[J]. Leighe, in 1587, and that he was born in 1567, and died in 1629. This is puts the song in the middle of the period when the tune was popular, and this seems to be the best evidence yet as to the author.
Helen Schneyer sings a short modern version on a phono-record. "The Romish Lady" (ZN1518) was originally sung to the same tune, but "The Romish Lady", #37 in G. P. Jackson's 'White Spirituals' was not the tune for "Jerusalem" in the 19th century shape note songsters. Instead #67, "Never Part, Never Part" was. [I can't remember the alternate 1st line in the old Presbyterian hymnal.] There was a "New Jerusalem" in an American psalm book of 1796, 'The Village Harmony', with a tune by Ingalls, but I don't have song or tune.
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