Teach me, tiny Godhead, to adore
On my flesh Thy tender weight,
As Thy Mother, bowing, owned how great
Was the Child that unto us she bore.
AURUM, THUS, ET MYRRHA—ALLELUIA!
O GIFT, O Blessèd Sacrament—my Gold,
All that I live by royally, the power,
Like gold, that buys life for me, hour by hour,
And crowns me with a greatness manifold
Such that my spirit scarce hath spring to hold
Its treasure and its sovereignty of dower!
O Blessèd Sacrament—my Frankincense,
God raised aloft in His Divinity,
Sweet-smelling as the dry and precious tree,
That spreads round sacrifice an odour dense,
Hiding with mystic offering our offence;
O holy Balm of God that pleads for me!
O Gift, O Blessèd Sacrament—my Myrrh!
Thou art to die for me—a holy Thing,
That will preserve my soul from festering,
Nor may it feel mortality, the stir
And motion into dust, if Thou confer
On it Thy bitter strength of cherishing!
HOLY COMMUNION
IN the Beginning—and in me,
Flesh of my flesh, O Deity,
Bone of my bone;
In me alone
Create, as if on Thy sixth day,
I, of frail breath and clay,
Were yet one seed with Thee,
Engendering Trinity!
My Lord, the honour of great fear
To be Thy teeming fiat here;
In blood and will
Urged to fulfil
Thy rounded motion of behest;
One with Thy power and blest
To act by aim and right
Of Thy prevenient might!
OF SILENCE
“Be it done unto me
According to Thy word....”
Into Mortality
Slips the Eternal Word,
When not a sound is heard.