Songs 25

¹How few receive with cordial faith

the tidings which we bring?

How few have seen the arm reveal’d

of heav’n’s eternal King?

²The Saviour comes! no outward pomp

bespeaks his presence nigh;

No earthly beauty shines in him

to draw the carnal eye.

³Fair as a beauteous tender flow’r

amidst the desert grows,

So slighted by a rebel race

the heav’nly Saviour rose.

⁴Rejected and despis’d of men,

behold a man of woe!

Grief was his close companion still

through all his life below.

⁵Yet all the griefs he felt were ours,

ours were the woes he bore:

Pangs, not his own, his spotless soul

with bitter anguish tore.

⁶We held him as condemn’d by Heav’n,

an outcast from his God,

While for our sins he groan’d, he bled,

beneath his Father’s rod.

⁷His sacred blood hath wash’d our souls

from sin’s polluted stain;

His stripes have heal’d us, and his death

reviv’d our souls again.

⁸We all, like sheep, had gone astray

in ruin’s fatal road:

On him were our transgressions laid;

he bore the mighty load.

⁹Wrong’d and oppress’d, how meekly he

in patient silence stood!

Mute, as the peaceful harmless lamb,

when brought to shed its blood.

¹⁰Who can his generation tell?

from prison see him led!

With impious show of law condemn’d,

and number’d with the dead.

¹¹’Midst sinners low in dust he lay;

the rich a grave supply’d:

Unspotted was his blameless life;

unstain’d by sin he dy’d.

¹²Yet God shall raise his head on high,

though thus he brought him low;

His sacred off’ring, when complete,

shall terminate his woe.

¹³For, saith the Lord, my pleasure then

shall prosper in his hand;

His shall a num’rous offspring be,

and still his honours stand.

¹⁴His soul, rejoicing, shall behold

the purchase of his pain;

And all the guilty whom he sav’d

shall bless Messiah’s reign.

¹⁵He with the great shall share the spoil,

and baffle all his foes;

Though rank’d with sinners, here he fell,

a conqueror he rose.

¹⁶He dy’d to bear the guilt of men,

that sin might be forgiv’n:

He lives to bless them and defend,

and plead their cause in heav’n.