Lyrics
Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face;
Here would I touch and handle things unseen;
Here grasp with firmer hand eternal grace,
And all my weariness upon Thee lean.
Here would I feed upon the bread of God,
Here drink with Thee the royal wine of heaven;
Here would I lay aside each earthly load,
Here taste afresh the calm of sin forgiven.
This is the hour of banquet and of song;
This is the heavenly table spread for me;
Here let me feast, and feasting, still prolong
The brief, bright hour of fellowship with Thee.
Too soon we rise, the symbols disappear;
The feast, though not the love, is past and done;
Gone are the bread and wine, but Thou art here,
Nearer than ever, still my Shield and Sun.
Feast after feast thus comes, and passes by;
Yet passing, points to the glad feast above;
Giving sweet foretaste of the festal joy,
The Lamb's great bridal feast of bliss and love.
Public domain hymn text (1855). Words by Horatius Bonar.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Horatius Bonar, a Scottish minister and one of the most widely published hymn writers of the nineteenth century, wrote 'Here, O My Lord, I See Thee Face to Face' in 1855 specifically as a Communion hymn, intended for use during the observance of the Lord's Supper.
Its repeated opening word, 'here,' anchors the entire hymn to the physical, present moment of Communion itself rather than describing faith in general or abstract terms, insisting that something genuinely happens in this specific place, at this specific table.
The hymn's language of touching and handling 'things unseen' draws on 1 John 1:1, where the apostle describes Christ as something 'our hands have handled,' applying that same startlingly physical, tactile language to the ordinary bread and wine of an ongoing church observance.
Bonar served for many years as a Free Church of Scotland minister, a denomination formed during the significant 1843 Disruption within the Church of Scotland, and much of his hymn writing reflects the serious, doctrinally careful piety characteristic of that tradition.
Its second verse extends the meal imagery further, describing 'the bread of God' and 'the royal wine of heaven,' language drawing on both the Eucharistic elements themselves and Christ's own description of Himself as the bread of life in John 6.
Bonar wrote hundreds of hymns over his long ministry, and this text became one of the standard Communion hymns across Scottish Presbyterian and broader Reformed traditions, valued specifically for its focus on the immediate, present reality of the sacrament rather than only its symbolic meaning.
The hymn remains in regular use at Communion services today, prized for the directness with which it asks worshippers to expect a genuine, present encounter rather than merely a remembered or symbolic one.
