LAUDA SION SALVATOREM
by: Robert Hugh Benson
(1871-1914)
- aud, O Sion, thy Salvation,
- Laud in songs of exultation
- This thy Shepherd and thy King:
- All thy might in triumph raising
- Praise Him who surpasses praising,
- Far beyond thine honouring.
- Be our theme of high thanksgiving
- Living Bread and source of living
- Set to-day before us here
- Broken at that Supper blessed,
- As by every mouth confessed,
- For the brethren gathered there.
- Laud be lifted, sweet and sounding,
- Ringing from an heart abounding,
- Rising into jubilee
- Laud in duteous celebration
- Of this Table's consecration
- For such high solemnity.
- Lo, the King His Law revises;
- Newer truth from elder rises,
- Newer Law and Paschal rite.
- Ancient truths their room surrender,
- Glows the twilight into splendour,
- Darkness vanishes in light.
- That He wrought at supper lying
- In remembrance of His dying
- Christ hath bid His Church renew;
- We the ordinance obeying,
- Earthly bread and wine displaying,
- Consecrate the Victim due.
- Now the sacred truth receiving
- We, the Bread His Flesh believing
- And the Wine His Blood to be,
- What tho' eye and mind be failing,
- Nature's order countervailing
- Grasp by faith the mystery.
- Under diverse kinds concealed
- While to sense yet unrevealed
- Lies a wonder all-divine
- Flesh and Blood hath each its token
- Yet abides their Christ unbroken
- Hidden under either sign.
- Perfect to the priest who breaks it,
- Perfect in the hand that takes it,
- Christ is undivided there,
- One or thousands may receive Him
- Yet true hearts in truth believe Him
- Unconsumed everywhere.
- Good and bad alike partaking
- Each, by diverse lot, is making
- One to woe and one to weal,
- Each from each is set asunder:
- Mark the word of grace and wonder --
- One to hurt and one to heal.
- Thus the Lord His Presence hiding
- Dwells in many parts abiding, --
- Every soul in Him confiding
- Doubts not that the Whole is there.
- He the One remaineth ever
- Under every part: for never
- Aught can Christ from Christ dissever,
- Still abiding everywhere.
"Lauda Sion Salvatorem" is reprinted from Poems. Robert Hugh Benson. New York: P.J. Kenedy
& Sons, 1914. |
MORE POEMS BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON |
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