Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Sacred Poems. II. Litany (“Saviour, when in dust to Thee”)Sir Robert Grant (1779–1838)
S
Low we bow th’ adoring knee,
When repentant, to the skies
Scarce we lift our weeping eyes;
O by all Thy pains and woe,
Suffered once for man below,
Bending from Thy throne on high,
Hear our solemn Litany!
By Thy life of want and tears
By Thy days of sore distress,
In the savage wilderness,
By the dread mysterious hour
Of the insulting tempter’s power;
Turn, O turn a favouring eye,
Hear our solemn Litany!
O’er the grave where Lazarus slept;
By the boding tears that flow’d
Over Salem’s loved abode;
By the anguish’d sigh that told
Treachery lurked within Thy fold,
From Thy seat above the sky,
Hear our solemn Litany!
By Thine agony of pray’r;
By the cross, the nail, the thorn,
Piercing spear and torturing scorn;
By the gloom that veil’d the skies
O’er the dreadful sacrifice,
Listen to our humble cry!
Hear our solemn Litany!
By the sad sepulchral stone,
By the vault whose dark abode
Held in vain the rising God!
O! from earth to heaven restor’d,
Mighty, re-ascended Lord,
Listen, listen to the cry
Of our solemn Litany!