Beautiful hymn, and new to me.
But, to what tune? It's an odd metre (88988) for which I can't find a tune.
'God' in st. 3 line 4 and st. 4 line 1 should be 'Gold'.
Does anyone have a tune for this?
Thanks for sharing it.

The tune from the hymnal is printed as Air de Saboly (from Nicolas Saboly). The hymn in its partiture is found in romaaeterna.jp/romanhmn/rh026.html. I just need the French lyrics, which I could not find online. Either the lyrics come from an extremely remote French or Canadian village, or the connection is simply apocryphal.

This answer obviously comes too late for Christmas, but I have plenty of information about this piece. This English text, which I had never seen before, is based on a famous old French noel.

The tune is “A la venue de Noel” (15th or 16th century). The metre is 8888 and the fifth line of each verse is simply the fourth line repeated. The tune is modal, with the leading note sometimes sharpened and sometimes not. It is definitely folk-like, and is not a hymn. (Think “The Holly and the Ivy” rather than “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”.) You can google the title and find performances of it online, though most of them are not very impressive. Many of them are so slow as to make the carol sound like a dirge. I think it should be sung in cut time, say 72 to the half-note. Every 17th and 18th century French organist who wrote noel variations (Lebegue, Dandrieu, Daquin, Balbastre) wrote a set on “A la venue de Noel”, and it is inevitably the first one in the collection, presumably because it was so well-known. The carol is still quite popular in France but is unknown in French Canada.

Like many old French noels, the original text (between 9 and 14 verses depending on the version) tells the Christmas story in a simple and rustic way. Other words have been fitted to the tune. I know of two such texts, both having to do with the Magi. One ("Rois d'Orient, illustres mages", with 7 verses) is by "Chanoine F. Le Dorz" and probably dates from the early 20th century. The other ("Rois d'Orient, marchez sans crainte", with 4 verses) is obviously a re-working of the previous one: it dates from the 1950s and is by a French Jesuit, Louis Barjon. Both authors followed the dictates of classical French poetry which demand that lines ending with “masculine” syllables alternate with lines ending with “feminine” syllables. Consequently, an extra syllable ending in “e” was added to the first and third lines, and so the last note of those lines has to be repeated, producing a 9898 metre. This is the 1950s text:

Rois d'Orient, marchez sans crainte!
Sur l'horizon l'étoile a lui.
Vers Bethléem, la ville sainte,
Dieu vous appelle et vous conduit.
Noël! Noël! L'étoile a lui.

Qui n'aimerait, tant il nous aime,
Ce nouveau-né qui vient du ciel?
Rois, cet enfant, c'est Dieu lui-même,
Dieu dont l'empire est éternel.
Alléluia! Noël! Noël!

Rois d'Orient, avec la myrrhe,
Vous apportez l'or et l'encens.
Mais de nos coeurs qu'il vient instruire,
Faits à Dieu d'abord présent.
Noël! Noël! Rois d'Orient!

Princes des îles d'Arabie,
Rois de Tharsis et de Saba,
C'est vers le Maître de la vie,
Que l'univers vient sur vos pas.
Noël! Noël! Alléluia!

The English text above, by Msgr John Edward Ronan, founder of St. Michael's Choir School in Toronto, is clearly inspired by one of these French texts (even down to the 9898 metre), though it is far from a translation of either one. The language is Victorian in its solemnity, and does not suit either the French text or the simple carol tune (unless the tune is sung like a ponderous hymn).

Great text, tune also used for Whence Comes This Rush of Wings, appears, (IIRC, as a noel,) in Franck's l'Organiste

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