"Lauda Sion salvatorem." The following was written by St. Thomas Aquinas as a part of the office for the feast of the Holy Sacrament (together with "Pange, lingua gloriosi." page 793), composed by him at the request of Pope Urban IV. Another version has been made by Dr. Neale, and one by Erastus C. Benedict, who remarks of the Latin, "Its harmony is without a jar, and the flow of its rhythm is as easy and undisturbed as aptly chosen words can make it, while its gentle cadences are in accord with the divine love which inspired the sacred rite "9 RISE, royal Sion! rise and sing Thy soul's kind Shepherd, thy heart's King. Lo, the bread of life! this day's Triumphant text provokes thy praise, The living and life-giving bread To the great twelve distributed, When Life, himself at point to die Of love, was his own legacy! Come, Love! and let us work a song Loud and pleasant, sweet and long; Let lips and hearts lift high the noise Of so just and solemn joys, Which on his white brows this bright day Shall hence forever bear away. 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 Ever to do what he once did; And, by a mindful, mystic breath, That we may live, revive his death; With a well-blest bread and wine Transumed and taught to turn divine. The heaven-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, Bold faith takes heart, and dares believe In different species; name not things, Himself to me my Saviour brings, As meat in that, as drink in this; But still in both one Christ he is. The receiving mouth here makes Bears home no less, all they no more, Though in itself this sovereign feast Be all the same to every guest, Yet on the same, life-meaning, bread The child of death eats himself dead. Nor is 't love's fault, but sin's dire skill 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 Lo, the life-food of angels then Bowed to the lowly mouths of men ! The children's bread, the bridegroom's wine, Not to be cast to dogs or swine. Lo, the full, final sacrifice On which all figures fixed their eyes, The ransomed Isaac and his ram; The manna and the paschal lamb. Jesu, Master, just and true! Our food and faithful Shepherd too! Oh, by thyself vouchsafe to keep, As with thyself thou feed'st thy sheep. Oh, let that love, which thus makes thee Mix with our low mortality, |