Mark,

There is a general caution I put out to anyone who tries to match an English text with a melody intended for a Latin text: it's very difficult for most of us to keep the metrical scheme as well as the sense. I gather Kathy Pluth does it with as much ease as some sing "Happy Birthday", but she's unusual. I'm not sure you've kept the sense of the melodic rhythm while you've kept the number of syllables correct.

MarkB,

1) The "standard English translation" is Dr. Neale's (that does bias me a little: his are the only translations into English that I have occasionally actually preferred to the Latin original). I applaud you for crafting a translation, and a competent one at that, and I think you may have shied away from Neale's for syllabic reasons? At any rate, just wondering if you did have a reason to avoid Neale's work other than that.

2) On the matter of translation, I'm not sure whether I would read "Sancti venite Christi corpus sumite" as "Come, ye saints, partake of Christ's Body," as much as I would read, "Come and partake of Holy Christ's Body." I think that's how Neale read it and, there being no good way to English that, just left off the first "Holy." Considering how "Sanctum . . . sanguinem" is structured in the second half of the stanza, I'd tend to think of that parallel structure (the second "sactum" unambiguously modifies "sanguinem") as shedding light on how we are to hear and understand the first half.

3) I would also second Chris' point about the accents. Not all of the English verses flow naturally, to my ear. Since you are supplying the translation as well, however, this is easily within your power to control.

4) Musically, I find the Antiphon very compelling and lovely. However, I'm not sure how naturally it fits with the verses.

The "Antiphon," with the F# in the melody line has a strongly harmonic minor feel, even involving the dominant 7th, while the verses, which cadence G-F(nat)-G, have a more modal sense. My ear doesn't usually mind when someone gets clever and harmonizes an integrally modal tune with more diatonic or chromatic material, but in this case, as the discrepancy lies in the melody itself, it seemed a bit too hard of a contrast to me.

Probably two more cents than you asked for, but hope it's helpful.

@NihilNominis For (2) Neale doesn't say ye Saints nor Holy Christ: his "Holy" waits for the Blood in the second line (sanctum sanguinem). I don't see how that Sancti could be taken as other than a vocative, followed as it is by a verb and then another clause.

I looked for alternate translations and didn't find a translation of it that suggested "Holy Christ". I found Spanish, Italian, and English that agreed with " Come, O saints,..."