226. C. H. M. Hemans.
The Agony in Gethsemane.
1He knelt; the Saviour knelt and prayed,
When but his Father's eye
Looked, through the lonely garden's shade,
On that dread agony:
The Lord of high and heavenly birth
Was bowed with sorrow unto death.
2He knew them all,--the doubt, the strife,
The faint perplexing dread;
The mists that hang o'er parting life
All darkened round his head;
And the Deliverer knelt to pray;
Yet passed it not, that cup, away.
3It passed not, though the stormy wave
Had sunk beneath his tread;
It passed not, though to him the grave
Had yielded up its dead;
But there was sent him, from on high,
A gift of strength, for man to die.
4And was his mortal hour beset
With anguish and dismay?
How may we meet our conflict yet
In the dark, narrow way?
How, but through him that path who trod?
"Save, or we perish, Son of God."