Christs bloody sweate - by Robert Southwell

Fatt soyle,       full springe,       sweete olive,     grape of blisse
That yeldes,    that streames,    that powres,       that dost distil
Untild,            undrawne,          unstampde,        untouchd of presse
Deare fruit,     cleare brooks,    fayre oyle,         sweete wine at will
Thus Christ unforc'd preventes in shedding bloode [5]
The whippes the thornes the nailes the speare and roode.

He Pelicans he Phenix fate doth prove
Whome flames consume whom streames enforce to die
How burneth bloud howe bleedeth burning love
Can one in flame and streame both bathe and frye [10]
How could he joyne a Phenix fyerye paynes
In faynting pelicans still bleeding vaynes

Elias once to prove gods soveraigne powre
By praire procur'd a fier of wondrous force
That blood and wood and water did devoure [15]
Yea stones and dust beyond all natures course
Such fire is love that fedd with gory bloode
Doth burne no lesse then in the dryest woode

O sacred Fire come shewe thy force on me
That sacrifice to Christe I maye retorne [20]
If withered wood for fuell fittest bee
If stones and dust yf fleshe and blood will burne
I withered am and stonye to all good.
A sack of dust a masse of fleshe and bloode

Notes

Background: After the Last Supper, Christ went with his disciples to Gethsemane to pray. His prayer in the garden is often referred to as the 'Agony in the Garden', by reason of the terrible pain in mind and body that He suffered there on account of our sins and in contemplation of His Passion.

[44] And his sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground. [Luke 22]

[ll1-4]: The first four lines can be read horizontally, vertically and (possibly) along some diagonals. In one sense, they refer to a miraculous paradox: how could untilled soil yield precious fruit? How might a man obtain water, undrawn, from a spring? Or oil from olives that have not been pressed? Or wine from grapes that have not been in the wine press?

[l1] Fatt: Fat - of land: fertile, rich. Of things: Abundant, plentiful; esp. of a feast, pasture, etc.
Of an animal used for food: Fed up for slaughter, ready to kill, fatted.

[l1] grape of blisse:In one sense, Christ is likened unto a vine bearing grapes. The grapes are placed in the wine press and crushed in order to obtain the 'sweete wine'. In the wine press of His passion, Christ is crushed and sheds every drop of His precious blood.

[2] Why then is thy apparel red, and thy garments like theirs that tread in the winepress? [3] I have trodden the wine press alone... [Isaiah 63]

In a second sense, there is a reference to the Last Supper, where Christ instituted the sacrament of Holy Communion, and to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in which His sacrifice is renewed to be applied through history. Bread and wine are changed into His body, blood, soul and divinity.

[l2]: powres: pours. distil: To let fall or give forth in minute drops.To give forth or impart in minute quantities; to infuse

[l3] unstampde: unstamped. Not crushed by stamping.1595   R. Southwell Christ's Bloody Sweat in Mæoniæ 3   'Sweete oliue, grape of blisse,..vnstampt, vntoucht of presse.' Gethsemani, a garden of olive trees with an olive press, is derived from the Hebrew gat, press, and semen, oil.

[l4] deare:  Of high estimation, of great worth or value; precious, valuable. Obsolete. Precious in import or significance; important. Obsolete. Of a high price, high-priced, absolutely or relatively; costly, expensive. Perhaps a reference to the price paid by Christ for our redemption. [fayre] fair - Excellent, admirable; good, desirable; noble, honourable; reputable. Obsolete.

[l5] unforc'd: this word corresponds in the poet's metaphor to the words in line 3: 'Untild,        undrawne, unstampde, untouchd of presse.'

[l5] preventes: transitive. To act in anticipation of, or in preparation for (a future event or point of time, esp. a time fixed for some action); to act as if (the event or time) had already come. Obsolete. 1549 Bk. Common Prayer (STC 16267) Celebr. Holye Communion f. lxxxixv   'That thy grace maye alwayes preuente and folowe vs.' Christ's agony in the garden anticipates His Passion and Crucifixion through the shared elements of suffering and the shedding of blood and water.

[l6] roode:  The cross upon which Jesus suffered; the cross as the symbol of the Christian faith.?1515   Hyckescorner (de Worde) sig. A.ii   Whan she sawe her sone on the rode The swerde of sorowe gaue that lady wounde.

[l7] Pelicans: A reference to the story that the pelican revives or feeds its young with its own blood. This story is told by Epiphanius and St Augustine. The image of Christ as the 'loving pelican' is common in Christian writing and art.
Adoro Te Devote is one of the five beautiful hymns St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) composed in honour of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament at Pope Urban IV's (1261-1264) request when the Pope first established the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264. The hymn is found in the Roman Missal as a prayer of thanksgiving after Mass. It contains a reference to Jesus as a pelican:

Deign, O Jesus, Pelican of heaven, me, a sinner, in Thy Blood to lave, to a single drop of which is given all the world from all its sin to save. Pie pellicane, Iesu Domine, me immundum munda tuo sanguine; cuius una stilla salvum facere totum mundum quit ab omni scelere. [See Preces Latinae site for the whole hymn]

[l7] Phenix: In classical mythology: a bird resembling an eagle but with sumptuous red and gold plumage, which was said to live for five or six hundred years in the deserts of Arabia, before burning itself to ashes on a funeral pyre ignited by the sun and fanned by its own wings, only to rise from its ashes with renewed youth to live through another such cycle. The phoenix is commonly used in Christian art with reference to the resurrection of Christ.

[ll13-18] Elias: Elias (Elijah) opposed the cult of Baal, the demon worshipped by Jezebel, wife of King Ahab of Israel. To please Jezebel, Ahab had altars erected to Baal. Elias appeared before King Ahab to announce God's curse for this idolatry: a drought on the country. Elijah challenged the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of the demon Asherah to a contest on Mount Carmel. The idolaters sacrificed a bull and cried out to Baal from morning until nightfall, even slashing their bodies until blood flowed, but nothing happened. Elijah then built an altar to the Lord, sacrificing a bull there. He put the burnt offering on it, along with wood. He had a servant soak the sacrifice and wood with four jars of water, three times. Elijah called on the Lord God:

[38] Then the fire of the Lord fell, and consumed the holocaust, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. [39] And when all the people saw this, they fell on their faces, and they said: The Lord he is God, the Lord he is God. [3 Kings 18]