The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw Volume I Part 27

Your ports are all superfluous here, Saue that which lets in Faith, the eare. 10 Faith is my skill: Faith can beleiue As fast as Loue new lawes can giue.

Faith is my force: Faith strength affords To keep pace with those powrfull words.

And words more sure, more sweet then they, 15 Loue could not think, Truth could not say.

O let Thy wretch find that releife Thou didst afford the faithful theife.

Plead for me, Loue! alleage and show That Faith has farther here to goe 20 And lesse to lean on: because than _then_ Though hidd as G.o.d, wounds with Thee man: Thomas might touch, none but might see At least the suffring side of Thee; And that too was Thy self which Thee did couer, 25 But here eu'n that's hid too which hides the other.

Sweet, consider then, that I Though allow'd nor hand nor eye To reach at Thy lou'd face; nor can Tast Thee G.o.d, or touch Thee man, 30 Both yet beleiue; and witnesse Thee My Lord too and my G.o.d, as lowd as he.

Help, Lord, my faith, my hope increase, And fill my portion in Thy peace: Giue loue for life; nor let my dayes 35 Grow, but in new powres to Thy name and praise.

O dear memoriall of that Death Which liues still, and allowes vs breath!

Rich, royall food! Bountyfull bread!

Whose vse denyes vs to the dead; 40 Whose vitall gust alone can giue The same leaue both to eat and liue; Liue euer bread of loues, and be My life, my soul, my surer-selfe to mee.

O soft self-wounding Pelican! 45 Whose brest weepes balm for wounded man: Ah! this way bend Thy benign floud To a bleeding heart that gaspes for blood.

That blood, whose least drops soueraign be To wash my worlds of sins from me. 50

Come Loue! come Lord! and that long day For which I languish, come away.

When this dry soul those eyes shall see, And drink the vnseal'd sourse of Thee: When Glory's sun, Faith's shades shall chase, 55 And for Thy veil giue me Thy face. Amen.

NOTES AND ILl.u.s.tRATIONS.

The original t.i.tle is 'A Hymne to our Saviour by the Faithfull Receiver of the Sacrament.' As before in the t.i.tle of 'The Weeper' 'Sainte' is misspelled 'Sanite.'

Line 1 in 1648 reads 'power.'

" 8, 'sitt still in his own dore.'

" 9, 'ports' = openings or gates. So in Edinburgh the 'West-port' = a gate of the city in the old west wall.

Line 21, 'than' = 'then.' See our PHINEAS FLETCHER, as before.

Line 29, TURNBULL leaves undetected the 1670 misprint of 'teach' for 'reach.'

Line 33, 1648 supplies 'my faith,' which in our text is inadvertently dropped; 1670 continues the error, which of course TURNBULL repeated.

Line 36, 1670 edition reads 'Grow, but in new pow'rs to name thy Praise.'

Lines 37-38 are inadvertently omitted in 1648 edition.

Our text, as will be seen, is arranged in stanzas of irregular form. In 1648 edition it is one continuous poem thus printed:

--------------------- --------------------- --------------------- --------------------- G.

LAVDA SION SALVATOREM:

THE HYMN FOR THE BL. SACRAMENT.[43]

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 n.o.bler 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.