He knelt; the Saviour knelt and prayed,
When but his Father’s eye
Looked, through the lonely garden’s shade,
On that dread agony;
He poured in prayer his suppliant breath,
Bowed down with sorrow unto death.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Source: A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devotion (15th ed.) #132
Hemans, Felicia Dorothea, née Browne, was born in Liverpool, Sep. 25, 1793. In 1800, her father having suffered severe losses in business, removed with his family near to Abergele, N. Wales, where he died sometime after. In 1812 she was married to Captain Hemans, who, on retiring from the army sometime after, removed to Bronnylfa, near St. Asaph. Some years after he left his wife and children and proceeded to Italy, where he died. In 1828 Mrs. Hemans removed to Wavertree, near Liverpool, and in 1831 to Dublin, where she died May 16, 1835, and was buried in St. Ann's Church, Dawson Street, in that city. From 1808, when at 15 she published Poems, to 1834, when her Scenes & Hymns of Life appeared, she produced a great number of poems and othe… Go to person page >
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