O GODHEAD HID

A HYMN FOR CORPUS CHRISTI

1. O Godhead hid, devoutly I adore thee,
who truly art within the forms before me;
to thee my heart I bow with bended knee,
as failing quite in contemplating thee.

2. Sight, touch and taste in thee are each deceived,
the ear alone most safely is believed:
I believe all the Son of God has spoken;
than truth’s own word there is no truer token.

3. God only on the cross lay hid from view;
but here lies hid at once the manhood too:
and I, in both professing my belief,
make the same prayer as the repentant thief.

4. Thy wounds, as Thomas saw, I do not see;
yet thee confess my Lord and God to be;
make me believe thee ever more and more,
in thee my hope, in thee my love to store.

5. O thou memorial of our Lord’s own dying!
O bread that living art and vivifying!
Make ever thou my soul on thee to live:
ever a taste of heavenly sweetness give.

6. O loving Pelican! O Jesu, Lord!
Unclean I am, but cleanse me in thy blood;
of which a single drop, for sinners spilt,
is ransom for a world’s entire guilt.

7. Jesu, whom for the present veiled I see,
what I so thirst for, oh, vouchsafe tome:
that I may see thy countenance unfolding,
and may be blest thy glory in beholding.

By St. Thomas Aquinas (13th cent.), translated by Edward Caswall (1814-78)