He knelt; the Saviour knelt and prayed,

When but his Father’s eye

Looked, through the lonely garden’s shade,

On that dread agony;

He poured in prayer his suppliant breath,

Bowed down with sorrow unto death.

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.

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.

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.

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!