Ah, this way bend thy benign flood, for blood; To a bleeding heart that gasps When this dry soul those eyes shall see, THE HYMN FOR THE BLESSED SACRAMENT LAUDA SION SALVATOREM. ISE, royal Sion! rise and sing Thy soul's kind shepherd, thy heart's King Harps of heav'n to hands of man— This sovereign subject sits above The best ambition of thy love. Lo, the bread of life! this day's To the great twelve distributed, Come, Love! and let us work a song Which on His white brows this bright day Lo, the new law of a new Lord, With a new Lamb blesses the board! The aged Pascha pleads not years, But spies love's dawn, and disappears. Types yield to truths, shades shrink away, And their night dies into our day. But, lest that die too, we are bid The heav'n-instructed house of faith Here a holy dictate hath, That they but lend their form and face, Themselves with reverence leave their place, Nature and name, to be made good By nobler bread, more needful blood. Where Nature's laws no leave will give, Himself to me my Saviour brings, The receiving mouth here makes Here dividers, single he Bears home no less, all they no more, Though in itself this sovereign feast That thus from life can death distil. When the blest signs thou broke shalt see, Hold but thy faith entire as He, Who, howsoe'er clad, cannot come Less than whole Christ in every crumb. Untouch'd her precious total hath. Lo, the life-food of angels then Bow'd to the lowly mouths of men! Not to be cast to dogs or swine. Lo, the full, final sacrifice On which all figures fix'd their eyes, The ransom'd Isaac and his ram, The manna, and the Paschal Lamb! Jesu, Master, just and true! Our food, and faithful Shepherd too! As with Thyself Thou feed'st Thy sheep. O, let that love which thus makes Thee Lift our lean souls, and set us up Co-heirs of saints, that so all may To feed of Thee in Thine own face! Amen. THE HYMN "DIES IRE DIES ILLA." EAR'ST thou, my soul, what serious things Of a sure Judge, from whose sharp ray The world in flames shall fly away? O, that Fire! before whose face Heav'n and earth shall find no place : O, these Eyes! whose angry light Must be the day of that dread night, O, that Trump! whose blast shall run An even round with th' circling sun, And urge the murmuring graves to bring Pale mankind forth to meet his King. Horror of nature, hell and death! Shall cry, O, that Book! whose leaves so bright Ah, then, poor soul! what wilt thou say? And to what patron choose to pray, When stars themselves shall stagger, and The most firm foot no more than stand? But Thou giv'st leave, dread Lord, that we Take shelter from Thyself in Thee; And with the wings of Thine own dove Dear, remember in that day Who was the cause Thou cam'st this way; Thy sheep was stray'd, and Thou wouldst be Even lost Thyself in seeking me! Shall all that labour, all that cost Of love, and even that loss, be lost? |