Trembling hearts with thoughts of woe,
Let us to God's temple go,
Silent, solemn, sad to-day,
Like those who with dumb dismay
Heard but now a dreadful tale
Dyed to make the heart-strings quail.
Wait no sound of calling bell,
Saddest rite, silent as well.
Widow mourning for her dead,
Such the altar widowed.
Hymns have ceased and mystic lay,
When descends in wondrous way,
By the emblem shadowed,
Of love and peace the living Bread.
Song arises -- sad lament,
Dazed Isaiah's mournful chant
While he feels the darkening pall
O'er his strainéd senses fall.
Of whom, Seer, speakest thou?
Who that fated One to grow
In God's sight a slender shoot
From a thirsty, parcheéd root? --
Object of the jester's rail,
Face concealéd with a vail
As if under Heaven's ban --
That most abject mortal man?
He is the Just the wicked crew
In unresisting silence slew;
He is the Just; and on His head
The guilt of all the LORD has laid;
The holy Samson typified
By him who freeing Israel died;
Who yielded for a faithless wife
His mighty locks and tortured life.
Who sits upon the Heavenly Throne
He made Himself Adam's true son,
Nor did disdain, as wretched heir
With brother-men, their woes to share;
Welcomed the shame and willed to feel
The mortal anguish o'er Him steal
And pain and terror following sin,
Though sin he never knew within.
Abandoned by His Father there,
Repulse to His submissive prayer
He bore; and oh, the foul embrace
Of perjured friendship, face to face! --
A murderer's night that soul became,
Conscience thundering, Hell aflame;
The cries of Blood he hears dismayed
And knows what Blood he has betrayed. --
Oh, horror! see that gang ferine
Pour insults on that face Divine,
Where the faultless Sons of Heaven brook
Scarce with a timid glance to look.
The drunken still more wine desires,
So outrage still their hatred fires
And greater crime their cruel joy
Inflames these crime-drunk to employ.
But who he was -- that silent man
Before his judgment-seat profane,
Like victim to the altar's side,
Dragged there by Jewish guilt and pride --
The haughty Roman did not ken,
Yet dreamed it more self-useful then,
By yielding innocence to die,
His vile security to buy.
Came up an execrated prayer
To Heaven, in vengence answered there;
The hosts were veiled suddenly,
God said: 'What ye demand shall be.'
And still that Blood, by their fathers craved,
Falls fearful on that race depraved
Which many and oft has changes taken
Yet from its head THIS has not shaken.
Lo, hardly on the accursed bed
The Man of Sorrows laid His head
And uttering a piteous cry
Gave up His spirit with a sigh,
The wrath of God, secure and great,
On the exulting murderers laid its threat;
From Zion's watch-towers sounded doom,
As if it said: 'Full soon I come'.
Great Father, for the Immolate,
Thy wrath tremendous moderate;
Change to a better, merciful LORD,
The maddened meaning of their word;
That Blood descend a gentle rain
And wash e'en them from every stain;
Our common guilt -- all were astray --
That sacred Blood must wash away.
Thou, Mother, who unmoved didst see
Crucified on Calvary
Such a Son, O Queen of the sad,
That we may see Him in His glory clad,
Pray for us; and that the pain
The good, from exile here, sustain,
Mixed with His be our convoy
And earnest of eternal joy.
