Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Richard Chenevix Trench (18071886)The Holy Eucharist
HONEY in the lion’s mouth, | |
Emblem mystical, divine, | |
How the sweet and strong combine; | |
Cloven rock for Israel’s drouth; | |
Treasure-house of golden grain, | 5 |
By our Joseph laid in store, | |
In his brethren’s famine sore | |
Freely to dispense again; | |
Dew on Gideon’s snowy fleece; | |
Well from bitter changed to sweet; | 10 |
Shew-bread laid in order meet, | |
Bread whose cost doth not increase | |
Though no rain in April fall; | |
Horeb’s manna, freely given, | |
Showered in white dew from heaven, | 15 |
Marvellous, angelical; | |
Weightiest bunch of Canaan’s vine; | |
Cake to strengthen and sustain | |
Through long days of desert pain; | |
Salem’s Monarch’s bread and wine;— | 20 |
Thou the antidote shalt be | |
Of my sickness and my sin, | |
Consolation, medicine, | |
Life and sacrament to me. | |