He knelt; the Saviour knelt and prayed,

When but his Father’s eye

Looked, through the lonely garden shade,

On that dread agony;

The Lord of high and heavenly birth

Was bowed with sorrow unto death.

2 The sun went down in fearful hour;

The heavens might well grow dim,

When this mortality had power

Thus to o’ershadow him;

That he who came to save might know

The very depths of human woe.

3 He knew them all—the doubt, the strife,

The faint, perplexing dread;

The mists that hang o’er parting life

All darkened round his head;

And the Deliverer knelt to pray;

Yet passed it not, that cup, away.

4 It passed not, though the stormy wave

Had sunk beneath his tread;

It passed not, though to him the grave

Had yielded up its dead;

But there was sent him, from on high,

A gift of strength, for man to die.

5 And was his mortal hour beset

With anguish and dismay?

How may we meet our conflict yet

In the dark, narrow way?

How, but through him that path who trod:

“Save, or we perish, Son of God.”