‘Dolor meus in conspectu meo semper.’
VICTIM of love, in manhood’s prime | |
| Thou wilt ascend the Cross to die: | |
| Why hangs the Child before His time | |
| Stretched on that bed of agony? | |
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| ‘No thorn-wreath crowns My boyish brow, | 5 |
| No scourge has dealt its cruel smart, | |
| In hands and feet no nail-prints show, | |
| No spear is planted in My heart. | |
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| ‘They have not set Me for a sign, | |
| Hung bare beneath the sunless sky, | 10 |
| Nor mixed the draught of gall and wine | |
| To mock My dying agony. | |
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| ‘The livelong night, the livelong day, | |
| My child, I travail for thy good, | |
| And for thy sake I hang alway | 15 |
| Self-crucified upon the Rood. | |
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| ‘To witness to the living Truth, | |
| To keep thee pure from sin’s alloy, | |
| I cloud the sunshine of My youth; | |
| The Man must suffer in the Boy. | 20 |
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| ‘Visions of unrepented sin, | |
| The forfeit crown, the eternal loss, | |
| Lie deep my sorrowing soul within, | |
| And nail My Body to the Cross. | |
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| ‘The livelong night, the livelong day, | 25 |
| A Child upon that Cross I rest; | |
| All night I for My children pray, | |
| All day I woo them to My breast. | |
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| ‘Long years of toil and pain are Mine, | |
| Ere I be lifted up to die, | 30 |
| Where cold the Paschal moonbeams shine | |
| At noon on darkened Calvary. | |
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| ‘Then will the thorn-wreath pierce My brow, | |
| The nails will fix Me to the tree; | |
| But I shall hang as I do now, | 35 |
| Self-crucified for love of thee!’ | |
