Читать книгу Poems of Adoration - Michael Field E. - Страница 12

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IN all things Thou art like us and content,

Bowing, receiv’st Thy sacrament.

What is it?—that Thou kneelest meek?

And what the gift that Thou dost seek

Beside us at Thy altars? Hour by hour,

What is it lays up in Thee holy power?

Christ, if Thou comest suppliant

It is to Death, the Celebrant!

Death gives the wafer of his dust;

The ashes of his harvest thrust

Upon Thy tongue Thou tastest, then

Dost swallow for the sake of men.

O Brightness of the Heavens, to save

Thy creatures Thou dost eat the grave!

Our Sacrament—oh, generous!—of wheat,

The dust that out of corn we eat,

Whiteness of Life’s fair grain! O Christ,

No grinding of the cornfield had sufficed

To lay upon our tongues Thy holy Bread,

Unless Thou hadst Thyself so harshly fed

With grindings of the bone of death, the grit

That once was beauty and the form of it;

Once welcome, now so sharp to taste;

Once featured, now the dregs of waste;

Of hope once filled, now lacking aught

Of treasure to be sold or bought—

Dust of our substance Thou each day

Dost taste of in its fated clay....

O soul, take thought! It is thy God

That to His lips presses this choking sod!