1 Oh, come away,
Make no delay,
Come while my heart is clean and steady!
While faith and grace
Adorn the place,
Making dust and ashes ready!
2 No bliss here lent
Is permanent,
Such triumphs poor flesh cannot merit;
Short sips and sights
Endear delights:
Who seeks for more he would inherit.
3 Come then, true bread,
Quickening the dead,
Whose eater shall not, cannot die!
Come, antedate
On me that state,
Which brings poor dust the victory.
4 Aye victory,
Which from thine eye
Breaks as the day doth from the east,
When the spilt dew
Like tears doth shew
The sad world wept to be released.
5 Spring up, O wine,
And springing shine
With some glad message from his heart,
Who did, when slain,
These means ordain
For me to have in him a part!
6 Such a sure part
In his blest heart,
The well where living waters spring,
That, with it fed,
Poor dust, though dead,
Shall rise again, and live, and sing.
7 O drink and bread,
Which strikes death dead,
The food of man's immortal being!
Under veils here
Thou art my cheer,
Present and sure without my seeing.
8 How dost thou fly
And search and pry
Through all my parts, and, like a quick
And knowing lamp,
Hunt out each damp,
Whose shadow makes me sad or sick!
9 O what high joys!
The turtle's voice
And songs I hear! O quickening showers
Of my Lord's blood,
You make rocks bud,
And crown dry hills with wells and flowers!
10 For this true ease,
This healing peace,
For this [brief] taste of living glory,
My soul and all,
Kneel down and fall,
And sing his sad victorious story!