Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”
Not in the same exquisite vein of noble tenderness, but perhaps all the more useful for its reduced voltage, is his other hymn of the Crucifixion,
“Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?
And did my Sovereign die?
Would he devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I!”
Its last verse has deepened the consecration of unnumbered millions as they sang the sacred vow:
“But drops of grief can ne’er repay
The debt of love I owe;