Lavda Sion Salvatorem: The Hymn for the Bl. Sacrament

Rise, royall Sion! rise and singThy soul's kind shepheard, thy hart's King.Stretch all thy powres; call if you canHarpes of heaun to hands of man.This soueraign subject sitts aboueThe best ambition of thy loue.

Lo, the Bread of Life, this day'sTriumphant text, prouokes thy prayse: incitesThe liuing and life-giuing breadTo the great twelue distributed;When Life, Himself, at point to dyOf loue, was His Own legacy.

Come, Loue! and let vs work a songLowd and pleasant, sweet and long;Let lippes and hearts lift high the noiseOf so iust and solemn ioyes,Which on His white browes this bright dayShall hence for euer bear away.

Lo, the new law of a new Lord,With a new Lamb blesses the board:The aged Pascha pleads not yearesBut spyes Loue's dawn, and disappeares.Types yield to truthes; shades shrink away;And their Night dyes into our Day.

But lest that dy too, we are bidEuer to doe what He once did:And by a mindfull, mystick breathThat we may liue, reuiue His death;With a well-bles't bread and wine,Transsum'd and taught to turn diuine.

The Heaun-instructed house of FaithHere a holy dictate hath,That they but lend their form and face;--Themselues with reuerence leaue their place,Nature, and name, to be made good,By a nobler bread, more needfull blood.

Where Nature's lawes no leaue will giue,Bold Faith takes heart, and dares beleiueIn different species: name not things,Himself to me my Saviovr brings;As meat in that, as drink in this,But still in both one Christ He is.

The receiuing mouth here makesNor wound nor breach in what he takes.Let one, or one thovsand beHere diuiders, single heBeares home no lesse, all they no more,Nor leaue they both lesse then before.

Though in it self this soverain FeastBe all the same to euery guest,Yet on the same (life-meaning) BreadThe child of death eates himself dead:Nor is't Loue's fault, but Sin's dire skillThat thus from Life can death distill.

When the blest signes thou broke shalt seeHold but thy faith intire as HeWho, howsoe're clad, cannot comeLesse then whole Christ in euery crumme.In broken formes a stable FaithVntouch't her precious totall hath.

So the life-food of angells thenBow'd to the lowly mouths of men!The children's Bread, the Bridegroom's Wine;Not to be cast to dogges, or swine.

Lo, the full, finall SacrificeOn which all figures fix't their eyes:The ransom'd Isack, and his ramme;The manna, and the paschal lamb.

Iesv Master, iust and true!Our food, and faithfull Shephard too!O by Thy self vouchsafe to keep,As with Thy selfe Thou feed'st Thy sheep.

O let that loue which thus makes TheeMix with our low mortality,Lift our lean soules, and sett vs vpCon-victors of Thine Own full cup,Coheirs of saints. That so all mayDrink the same wine; and the same way:Nor change the pastvre, but the place,To feed of Thee, in Thine Own face. Amen.