Scripture Verse

His banner over me was love. Song of Solomon 2:4

Introduction

portrait
François H. Barthélémon (1741–1808)

Words: Ros­well Park, Se­lect­ions of Ju­ve­nile and Mis­cel­la­ne­ous Po­ems (Phi­la­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia: De­si­lver, Tho­mas, 1836), pages 152–53 .

Music: Au­tumn Fran­çois H. Bar­thé­lé­mon, 1785 (🔊 pdf nwc).

If you know where to get a good pic­ture of Park (head & shoul­ders, at least 200×300 pix­els), or a bet­ter one of Bar­thé­lé­mon,

Lyrics

Jesus spreads his ban­ner o’er us,
Cheers our fam­ished souls with food;
He the ban­quet spreads be­fore us,
Of His mys­tic flesh and blood.
Precious ban­quet, bread of Hea­ven,
Wine of glad­ness, flow­ing free;
May we taste it, kind­ly giv­en,
In re­mem­brance, Lord, of Thee.

In Thy ho­ly in­car­na­tion,
When the an­gels sang Thy birth;
In Thy fast­ing and temp­ta­tion,
In Thy la­bors on the earth,
In Thy tri­al and re­ject­ion,
In Thy suf­fer­ings on the tree,
In Thy glo­ri­ous re­sur­rect­ion,
May we, Lord, re­mem­ber Thee.

The usu­al­ly omit­ted first verse:

While the sons of earth re­tir­ing,
From the sac­red tem­ple roam;
Lord, Thy light and love de­sir­ing,
To Thine al­tar fain we come.
Children of our hea­ven­ly Fa­ther,
Friends and breth­ren we would be;
While we round Thy ta­ble ga­ther,
May our hearts be one in Thee.