Within a Garden’s bound,

Where still night reigned around,

A mournful cry of bitter anguish wailed;

There, hid from mortal gaze,

One knelt in deep amaze,

A Heart oppressed beneath its Burthen quailed.

That One, in travail sore,

Was our dear Lord, Who bore

Our sins’ great burthen that on Him was laid;

While none could bring relief,

To that exceeding grief,

The grief that made His human Soul afraid.

But lo! from those hot veins,

Forced out by mental pains,

Great Drops of Blood adown the verdure fall;

Such whelming fears assail,

That heart and courage fail,

As first essays of sin’s strange load appal.

No other gaze but His

Could fathom that abyss,

Whose lowest depths to Him stood all revealed;

The sins of Adam’s race,

Against God’s Love and Grace,

His thought embraced them all as thus He kneeled.

Ungodly counsels then,

And deeds of evil men,

All sins of each degree, of every kind;

Not as to mortal eyes,

But in their hellish guise,

Were then all bared to His Omniscient Mind.

The ponderous weight of all,

From Adam’s grievous fall,

Till earth’s Last Day and solemn Reckoning Time;

Of all God’s Books record,

The curse, the due reward,

Th’ iniquity of all now laid on Him!

That high-filled Cup of Woes,

His Prescient Mind foreknows,

From first approach of Judas’ torch-led host;

That false disciple’s kiss,

And all that followed this,

Till on the Cross He yielded up the ghost.

Each furrowed, bleeding gash,

From cruel scourge’s lash,

And sharpest pricks of that mock thorny Crown;

The insults, blows, and scorn,

That must be meekly borne,

These weigh the Son of Man’s meek Spirit down.

He sees with vision clear,

And shrinks with human fear,

The Cross with curse o’erlaid and angry doom;

The hours of racking pain

He must, nailed there, sustain,

While lingering death life’s marrow shall consume.

Maker and Lord of all!

Behold Him prostrate fall,

And humbly kneel in silent anguish there;

Till, with an inward groan,

Towards the Heavenly Throne,

With earnest pleading, He directs His Prayer.

“Father, to Thee I pray,

O take this Cup away!

Thou hast all power to do Thy Will Divine;

Remove, if it may be,

This Cup away from Me!

Yet, Father, not My Will be done, but Thine.”

Thus thrice our suffering Lord,

With Prostrate Form implored,

That even then that Hour might pass away;

Until from heaven, at length,

An angel brought Him strength,

And healing balm His troubled Soul to stay.

O well for us, indeed!

He took, as was decreed,

And drained the Cup His Heavenly Father gave;

And therefore songs of praise

We ransomed sinners raise,

To Him Who meekly died our souls to save.