WHY doth my Saviour weep | |
| At sight of Sion’s bowers? | |
| Shows it not fair from yonder steep, | |
| Her gorgeous crown of towers | |
| Mark well His holy pains: | 5 |
| ’Tis not in pride or scorn | |
| That Israel’s King with sorrow stains | |
| His own triumphal morn. | |
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| It is not that His soul | |
| Is wandering sadly on, | 10 |
| In thought how soon at death’s dark goal | |
| Their course will all be run, | |
| Who now are shouting round | |
| Hosanna to their Chief; | |
| No thought like this in Him is found, | 15 |
| This were a Conqueror’s grief. 1 | |
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| Or doth He feel the Cross | |
| Already in His heart, | |
| The pain, the shame, the scorn, the loss? | |
| Feel even His God depart? | 20 |
| No: though he knew full well | |
| The grief that then shall be— | |
| The grief that Angels cannot tell— | |
| Our God in agony. | |
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| It is not thus He mourns; | 25 |
| Such might be martyr’s tears, | |
| When His last lingering look He turns | |
| On human hopes and fears; | |
| But hero ne’er or saint | |
| The secret load might know, | 30 |
| With which His spirit waxeth faint; | |
| His is a Saviour’s woe. | |
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| “If thou hadst known, even thou, | |
| At least in this thy day, | |
| The message of thy peace! but now | 35 |
| ’Tis passed for aye away: | |
| “Now foes shall trench thee round, | |
| And lay thee even with earth, | |
| And dash thy children to the ground, | |
| Thy glory and thy mirth.” | 40 |
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| And doth the Saviour weep | |
| Over His people’s sin, | |
| Because we will not let Him keep | |
| The souls He died to win? | |
| Ye hearts that love the Lord, | 45 |
| If at this sight ye burn, | |
| See that in thought, in deed, in word, | |
| Ye hate what made Him mourn. | |
