Classic Poem

Rise royal Sion! rise and sing
Thy souls kind Shepherd, thy harts King:
Stretch all thy pow'rs; call if you can,
Harps of heaven to hands of man:
This soveraign subject sits above
The best ambition of thy love.
Lo here 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 dy
Of love, was his own Legacy.
But, lest That dy too, We are bid,
Ever to do what He once did;
And by a mindful mystick breath,
That we may live, revive his death;
With a miraculous Bread and Wine
Transum'd, and taught to turn divine.
The heav'n-instructed House of Faith
Here a mysterious Dictate hath;
That they but lend their form and face,
Themselvs with reverence leave their place,
Nature, and Name, to be made good
By a nobler Bread, more needful Blood.
Where nature's law no leave will give;
Bold Faith takes hart, and dares believe:
In different species, Names not Things,
Himself to me my Saviour brings:
As meat in That, as drink in this;
But still in Both, one Christ he is.
Yet the receiving mouth here makes
Nor wound nor breach in what he takes:
Let one alone, or thousands be
Here the Dividers; single he
Bears home no less, All they no more;
Nor leave they Both less then before.
Lo the life-food of Angels, then,
Bow'd to the lowly mouths of men.
Lo the full final Sacrifice;
On which all Figures fixt their eys;
The ransom'd Isaac, and his Ram,
The Manna, and the Paschal Lamb.
Jesu, to Thee we sinners sue;
O Thou our Food, and Shepherd too!
Still by Thy self vouchsafe to keep,
As with thy self thou feed'st thy Sheep.
Blest be that Love which thus makes Thee
Mix with our low mortality.
O may It raise and set us up
Convicters of thine own full Cup;
Coheirs of Saints: that so all may
Drink the same wine, and the same way:
Nor change the pasture, but the place;
To feed on Thee, in thine own Face.
Amen