I.
Rise, royall Sion! rise and sing
Thy soul's kind shepheard, thy hart's King.
Stretch all thy powres; call if you can
Harpes of heaun to hands of man.
This soueraign subject sitts aboue
The best ambition of thy loue.
II.
Lo, the Bread of Life, this day's
Triumphant text, prouokes thy prayse: incites
The liuing and life-giuing bread
To the great twelue distributed;
When Life, Himself, at point to dy
Of loue, was His Own legacy.
III.
Come, Loue! and let vs work a song
Lowd and pleasant, sweet and long;
Let lippes and hearts lift high the noise
Of so iust and solemn ioyes,
Which on His white browes this bright day
Shall hence for euer bear away.
IV.
Lo, the new law of a new Lord,
With a new Lamb blesses the board:
The aged Pascha pleads not yeares
But spyes Loue's dawn, and disappeares.
Types yield to truthes; shades shrink away;
And their Night dyes into our Day.
V.
But lest that dy too, we are bid
Euer to doe what He once did:
And by a mindfull, mystick breath
That we may liue, reuiue His death;
With a well-bles't bread and wine,
Transsum'd and taught to turn diuine.
VI.
The Heaun-instructed house of Faith
Here 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.
VII.
Where Nature's lawes no leaue will giue,
Bold Faith takes heart, and dares beleiue
In 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.
VIII.
The receiuing mouth here makes
Nor wound nor breach in what he takes.
Let one, or one thovsand be
Here diuiders, single he
Beares home no lesse, all they no more,
Nor leaue they both lesse then before.
IX.
Though in it self this soverain Feast
Be all the same to euery guest,
Yet on the same (life-meaning) Bread
The child of death eates himself dead:
Nor is't Loue's fault, but Sin's dire skill
That thus from Life can death distill.
X.
When the blest signes thou broke shalt see
Hold but thy faith intire as He
Who, howsoe're clad, cannot come
Lesse then whole Christ in euery crumme.
In broken formes a stable Faith
Vntouch't her precious totall hath.
XI.
So the life-food of angells then
Bow'd to the lowly mouths of men!
The children's Bread, the Bridegroom's Wine;
Not to be cast to dogges, or swine.
XII.
Lo, the full, finall Sacrifice
On which all figures fix't their eyes:
The ransom'd Isack, and his ramme;
The manna, and the paschal lamb.
XIII.
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.
XIV.
O let that loue which thus makes Thee
Mix with our low mortality,
Lift our lean soules, and sett vs vp
Con-victors of Thine Own full cup,
Coheirs of saints. That so all may
Drink the same wine; and the same way:
Nor change the pastvre, but the place,
To feed of Thee, in Thine Own face. Amen.