* Around 1975 I wrote out the plainsong of this Easter hymn as a song for women’s voices and piano. The setting here, for women’s voices first, then SATB, is written to be sung as a hymn, but also to be danced; as such, it can be called a carol.

The first two verses are a translation by Laurence Housman (1865-1959), younger brother of A.E.Housman (author of ‘A Shropshire Lad’) from the Latin of Philippe de Grève, Chancellor of the Church and University of Paris from 1218 till his death in 1236. I wrote the third and fourth verses to make plain that the Easter setting of the medieval hymn is as contemporary now as when it first appeared.

A lightly beaten tambour could enhance the sense of this hymn as a dance.

Mary-weep-not-weep-no-longer