165
C. H. M.
Agony in the garden.
He knelt; the Saviour knelt and prayed,
When but his Father’s eye
Looked, through the lonely garden shade,
On that dread agony;
The Lord of high and heavenly birth
Was bowed with sorrow unto death.
2 The sun went down in fearful hour;
The heavens might well grow dim,
When this mortality had power
Thus to o’ershadow him;
That he who came to save might know
The very depths of human woe.
3 He 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.
4 It 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.
5 And 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.”
Mrs. Hemans.