Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

By Songs of Day and Night. IX. If It Be Possible

Alexander B. Grosart (1835–1899)

I MAY not tread Gethsemane,

I may not share Thy agony,

O Jesus Christ my Saviour!

Yet hear me, Lord, Thy prayer I pray,

As I am fainting on my way,

O Jesus Christ my Saviour!

Darkness around me thick enfolds,

A “cup of trembling” my hand holds,

O Jesus Christ my Saviour!

Forgive me, O forgive my cry,

“If it be possible, pass it by,”

O Jesus Christ my Saviour!

My “little one” Thou lovest is sick,

And hour by hour he grows more weak,

O Jesus Christ my Saviour!

I mark the thinning of his face,

And awful lines upon him trace,

O Jesus Christ my Saviour!

This is the cup to me Thou’rt reaching,

Lord, hear me in my poor beseeching,

O Jesus Christ my Saviour!

“If it be possible,” spare him, Lord;

Speak Thou ev’n now the healing word,

O Jesus Christ my Saviour!

We gave him to Thee in our vow,

Thy name was nam’d upon his brow,

O Jesus Christ my Saviour!

Life is a great gift; I would fain

Have him a MAN for Thee to train,

O Jesus Christ my Saviour!

“Yet not my will but Thine be done,”—

Alas! alas! my little son,—

O Jesus Christ my Saviour!

My heart is sore; I can but sigh—

“If it be possible,” hear my cry,

O Jesus Christ my Saviour!