THE YEAR begins with Thee, | |
| And Thou beginn’st with woe, | |
| To let the world of sinners see | |
| That blood for sin must flow. | |
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| Thine infant cries, O Lord, | 5 |
| Thy tears upon the breast, | |
| Are not enough—the legal sword | |
| Must do its stern behest. | |
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| Like sacrificial wine | |
| Pour’d on a victim’s head | 10 |
| Are those few precious drops of Thine, | |
| Now first to offering led. | |
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| They are the pledge and seal | |
| Of Christ’s unswerving faith | |
| Given to His Sire, our souls to heal, | 15 |
| Although it cost His death. | |
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| They to His Church of old, | |
| To each true Jewish heart | |
| In Gospel graces manifold | |
| Communion blest impart. | 20 |
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| Now of Thy love we deem | |
| As of an ocean vast, | |
| Mounting in tides against the stream | |
| Of ages gone and past. | |
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| Both theirs and ours thou art, | 25 |
| As we and they are Thine; | |
| Kings, Prophets, Patriarchs—all have part | |
| Along the sacred line. | |
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| By blood and water too | |
| God’s mark is set on Thee, | 30 |
| That in Thee every faithful view | |
| Both covenants might see. | |
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| O bond of union, dear | |
| And strong as is thy grace! | |
| Saints parted by a thousand year, | 35 |
| May thus in heart embrace. | |
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| Is there a mourner true, | |
| Who, fallen on faithless days, | |
| Sighs for the heart-consoling view | |
| Of those Heaven deign’d to praise? | 40 |
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| In spirit may’st thou meet | |
| With faithful Abraham here, | |
| Whom soon in Eden thou shalt greet, | |
| A nursing Father dear. | |
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| Would’st thou a Poet be? | 45 |
| And would thy dull heart fain | |
| Borrow of Israel’s minstrelsy | |
| One high enraptured strain? | |
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| Come here thy soul to tune, | |
| Here set thy feeble chant, | 50 |
| Here, if at all beneath the moon, | |
| Is holy David’s haunt. | |
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| Art thou a child of tears, | |
| Cradled in care and woe? | |
| And seems it hard, thy vernal years | 55 |
| Few vernal joys can show? | |
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| And fall the sounds of mirth | |
| Sad on thy lonely heart, | |
| From all the hopes and charms of earth | |
| Untimely called to part? | 60 |
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| Look here, and hold thy peace: | |
| The Giver of all good | |
| Even from the womb takes no release | |
| From suffering, tears, and blood. | |
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| If thou would’st reap in love, | 65 |
| First sow in holy fear: | |
| So life a winter’s morn may prove | |
| To a bright endless year. | |
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