O tearful sweetness of that voice of God
Breaking amid the clamor of the crowd
Of Jews and soldiers hastening him to death!
Often the chant bad stirred my soul before
In humbler church, till had familiar grown
Almost each word and every varying tone
That with each added year a new grace wore;
But never grace so pitiful as this
That filled the arches with all deep distress,
With passionate sense of human guiltiness—