When I sang it at Wadham, it was from the organ loft, so as the second verse began I really did come down to earth from heaven. :-)

Fun story about that, actually; there were two iterations of the service, and I sang the thing at one of them, but the son of some fellow of the college sang it at the other. And being every bit that traditional, you know, the soloist sings the first verse unaccompanied, and then the choir sings the second verse in parts also unaccompanied, and then the organ only comes in on the third verse. I'm pleased to report that when I sang the first verse, I was bang on every pitch so the choir came in for the second verse in the same key I'd begun in; and the choir, thankfully, stayed in that key for the duration of the second verse, so when the organ came in it was in the same key we'd been singing in all that time. :-) (Not after some missteps in rehearsal, I'll tell you what, because choirs do tend to sag, don't they.) When the boy sang the first verse - well, when he practiced it, he went badly flat, poor thing, but in the service, he went juuust ever so slightly south, probably sounded fine, but by the time the choir came in we were hanging onto the key by our very fingernails - but we brought that pitch back up to where it belonged, by god, and when the organ came in, the pitches matched. Victory! :-D