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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse  »  6. To the Blessed Sacrament

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

Henry Constable (1562–1613)

6. To the Blessed Sacrament

WHEN thee (O holy sacrificed Lambe)

In severed sygnes I whyte and liquide see,

As on thy body slayne I thynke on thee,

Which pale by sheddyng of thy bloode became.

And when agayne I doe behold the same

Vayled in whyte to be receav’d of mee,

Thou seemest in thy syndon wrapt to bee

Lyke to a corse, whose monument I am.

Buryed in me, vnto my sowle appeare,

Pryson’d in earth, and bannisht from thy syght,

Lyke our forefathers who in lymbo were,

Cleere thou my thoughtes, as thou did’st gyve them light,

And as thou others freed from purgyng fyre

Quenche in my hart the flames of badd desyre.