Poems on Several Occasions :: :: University of Virginia Library

See! how the sanguine Streams run down,
And bath his heav'nly Face with Gore:
Those sacred Streams, whose inexhausted Store
A World of Sin must drown.
With Thorns his wounded Temples crown'd,
With dropping Blood are hung around:
Those Drops which our lost Whiteness must restore.
See how, the regal Purple glows;
Vain Insult of tyrannic Pride!
See how, with nobler Purple dy'd,
His furrow'd Sides the livid Stripes disclose.
Those livid Stripes, with virtuous Smart,
A Cure to our Disease impart.
See! in his Hand, whose Fate of old
The dying patriarch to his Sons foretold,
For Juda's Sceptre, for the awful Rod
Of high Command, an useless Bulrush nod.

II.

In vain the Romans threat, the Jews deride;
Nor know their King in his diminish'd State:
How distant from our Hopes, they cry'd,
Is this Deliv'rer, long reserv'd by Fate?

Behold the Man! O! yet behold!
And gaze till Tears have made you blind,
Those Sorrows never to be told,
That silent Grief, that Air resign'd:
How he appeals, with up-cast Eyes,
To his great Father, and his native Skies.
In ev'ry Feature, ev'ry Line,
The Characters unalter'd shine
Of Goodness and of Love divine.
'Twas only Love Divine that cou'd sustain
This cruel agonizing Pain:
Th' eternal Word in human Flesh array'd,
The Maker thus redeem'd whom he had made:
And for lost Man th' inestimable Ransom pay'd.

III.

Wretch! can'st thou think on this, and yet not feel
The thorny Wreath, the biting Steel,
Which pierc'd his Hands and Feet, and gor'd his tender Side!
For thee he bled, for thee he dy'd:
All this for ruin'd Man he bore,
And open'd heav'nly Mercy's boundless Store.
Can'st thou, by him redeem'd, deny
For him to bleed, for him to dy?
O thou who singly can'st for all suffice!
Our reconciling Priest! our spotless Sacrifice!
Thou, the great Father's co-eternal Son!
Whose ever-during Being with no Time begun.

Propitious God! thy gracious Aid impart
To crucify this sinful Heart,
Transfix'd, like thine, with sympathizing Smart.
Forbid it, Lord! that I untouch'd should be
With Suff'rings from myself transferr'd on Thee.

IV.

And what, alas! can I bestow?
My Eyes! bid all your Fountains flow!
Too mean, alas! the watry Show'r!
My Veins! your purple Torrents pour:
Unequal all to what I owe!
No! tho' in gushing Tears dissolve my Brain,
And Life, exhausted, ebb at every Vein,
Nor cou'd the gushing Tears prevail,
That Inundation of my Eye!
Nor what my bleeding Veins supply,
To wash away the guilty Dye:
The Ocean there itself wou'd fail.
Tho' mine is all the Guilt and thine the Pain,
Thy sacred Blood alone can purify the Stain.