4.
“He bare our griefs, and carried our sorrows.”
Thus the Almighty God is prostrate bent
Beneath the unpitying scourge and soldier throng,
Yielding those Hands to the fast binding thong,
Which moulded the o'er-hanging firmament;—
A fainting Victim with sore anguish spent.
Thus till the day of doom He comes among
His children's thoughtless ways of mirth or wrong,
Bearing the burden of our punishment,—
Comes in some attitude of speechless throes
Upon our joys and sorrows to attend;
Teaching us what alone His Spirit knows,
Our state, our origin, our being's end;
While thus our true and everlasting Friend
Pleads with us in the silence of His woes.
