Sing, my tongue, the Saviour’s glory, of his Flesh the mystery sing

Sing, my tongue, the Saviour’s glory, Of his Flesh the mystery sing. Edward Caswall* (1814-1878). This was written for Vespers on the Feast of Corpus Christi. It is from Caswall’s Lyra Catholica (1849). As the words in italics indicate, it is based on the Latin ‘Pange lingua gloriosi Corporis mysterium’*, to which line 2 is clearly indebted. The words  ‘mysterium’ in Latin and ‘mystery’ in English have the meaning of divine mystery, used here not in the modern sense of the word, but ‘a religious truth known only from divine revelation;…a doctrine of the faith involving difficulties which human reason is incapable of solving’ (OED, Sense 2). Caswall’s 1849 text had four stanzas:...