O World! Behold upon the Tree

O world! be­hold up­on the tree

Thy Life is hang­ing now for thee

Thy Sav­ior yields His dy­ing breath;

The migh­ty Prince of glo­ry now

For thee doth un­re­sist­ing bow

To cru­el stripes

to scorn and death.

Draw near

O world

and mark Him well;

Behold the drops of blood that tell

How sore His con­flict with the foe:

And hark! how from that no­ble heart

Sigh af­ter sigh doth slow­ly start

From depths of yet un­fa­thomed woe.

Alas! my Sav­ior

who could dare

Bid Thee such bit­ter an­guish bear

What ev­il heart en­treat Thee thus?

For Thou art good

hast wrong­èd none

As we and ours too oft have done

Thou hast not sinned

dear Lord

like us.

I and my sins

that num­ber more

Than yon­der sands up­on the shore

Have brought to pass this ago­ny;

’Tis I have caused the floods of woe

That now Thy dy­ing soul o’er­flow

And those sad hearts that watch by Thee.

’Tis I to whom these pains be­long

’Tis I should suf­fer for my wrong

Bound hand and foot in hea­vy chains;

Thy scourge

Thy fet­ters

what­so­e’er

Thou bear­est

’tis my soul should bear

For she hath well de­served such pains.

Yet Thou dost ev­en for my sake

On Thee in love the bur­dens take

That weighed my spir­it to the ground

Yes

Thou art made a curse for me

That I might yet be blest through Thee;

My heal­ing in Thy wounds is found.

To save me from the mon­ster’s pow­er

The Death that all things would de­vour

Thyself in­to his jaws dost leap;

My death Thou tak­est thus away

And bu­ri­est in Thy grave for aye

O love most strange­ly true and deep!

From hence­forth there is naught of mine

But I would seek to make it Thine

Since all my­self to Thee I owe.

Whate’er my ut­most pow­ers can do

To Thee to ren­der serv­ice true

Here at Thy feet I lay it low.

Ah! lit­tle have I

Lord

to give

So poor

so base the life I live

But yet

till soul and bo­dy part

This one thing I will do for Thee—

The woe

the death en­dured for me

I’ll cher­ish in my in­most heart.

Thy cross shall be be­fore my sight

My hope

my joy

by day and night

Whate’er I do

where’er I rove;

And

gaz­ing

I will ga­ther thence

The form of spot­less in­no­cence

The seal of fault­less truth and love.

And from Thy sor­rows will I learn

How fierce­ly doth God’s an­ger burn

How ter­ri­bly His thun­ders roll

How sore­ly this our lov­ing God

Can smite with His aveng­ing rod

How deep His floods o’er­whelm the soul.

And I will stu­dy to ad­orn

My heart with mee­kness un­der scorn

With gen­tle pa­tience in dis­tress

With faith­ful love

that yearn­ing cleaves

To those o’er whom to death it grieves

Whose sins its ve­ry soul op­press.

When ev­il ton­gues with sting­ing blame

Would cast dis­hon­or on my name

I’ll curb the pass­ions that up­start;

And take in­jus­tice pa­tient­ly

And par­don

as Thou par­don’st me

With an un­grudg­ing ge­ner­ous heart.

And I will nail me to Thy cross

And learn to count all things but dross

Wherein the flesh doth plea­sure take;

Whate’er is hate­ful in Thine eyes

With all the strength that in me lies

Will I cast from me and for­sake.

Thy hea­vy groans

Thy bit­ter sighs

The tears that from Thy dy­ing eyes

Were shed when Thou wast sore op­pressed

Shall be with me

when at the last

Myself on Thee I whol­ly cast

And ent­er with Thee in­to rest.