Very Bread, Good Shepherd, Tend Us

Very Bread, Good Shepherd, tend us;
Jesu, of Thy love befriend us;
Thou refresh us, Thou defend us,
Thine eternal goodness send us
In the land of life to see:
Thou Who all things canst and knowest,
Who in earth such Food bestowest,
Grant us with Thy saints, though lowest,
Where the heav’nly feast Thou showest,
Fellow heirs and guests to be.

Author: St. Thomas Aquinas

Year: 1264

This is an English translation of the final stanzas (Lauda Sion Salvatorem, stanzas 21-22) of the Corpus Christi sequence hymn traditionally attributed to Thomas Aquinas. The most common English version is by Edward Caswall (1849), but the original Latin text and its authorship belong to Aquinas.