Lo, the full, final sacrifice (Gerald Finzi)

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English text

Lo, the full, final Sacrifice

On which all figures fix’t 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!

O let that love which thus makes thee

Mix with our low Mortality,

Lift our lean Souls, and set us up

Convictors 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 of Thee in thine own Face.

O dear Memorial of that Death

Which lives still, and allows us breath!

Rich, Royal food! Bountiful Bread!

Whose use denies us to the dead!

Live ever Bread of loves, and be

My life, my soul, my surer self to me.

Help Lord, my Faith, my Hope increase;

And fill my portion in thy peace.

Give love for life; nor let my days

Grow, but in new powers to thy name and praise.

Rise, Royal Sion! rise and sing

Thy soul’s kind shepherd, thy heart’s King.

Stretch all thy powers; call if you can

Harps of heaven to hands of man.

This sovereign subject sits above

The best ambition of thy love.

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.

O soft self-wounding Pelican!

Whose breast weeps Balm for wounded man.

All this way bend thy benign flood

To’a bleeding Heart that gasps for blood.

That blood, whose least drops sovereign be

To wash my worlds of sins from me.

Come love! Come Lord! and that long day

For which I languish, come away.

When this dry soul those eyes shall see,

And drink the unseal’d source of thee.

When Glory’s sun faith’s shades shall chase,

And for thy veil give me thy Face.

Amen.

from Richard Crashaw’s versions of the Hymns of St. Thomas Aquinas, Adoro Te and Lauda Sion Salvatorem.