Alas! and did my Saviour bleed

Alas! and did my Saviour bleed. Isaac Watts* (1674-1748). From Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1707), Book II, ‘Composed on Divine Subjects’, with the title ‘Godly Sorrow arising from the Sufferings of Christ’. It had six stanzas. The original stanza 2 has usually been omitted: Alas! and did my Saviour bleed,  And did my sov’reign die?Would he devote that sacred Head  For such a Worm as I? Thy Body slain, sweet Jesus, thine, And bath’d in its own Blood, While all expos’d to Wrath divine The glorious Sufferer stood? Was it for Crimes that I had done  He groan’d upon the Tree?Amazing Pity! Grace unknown!  And Love beyond Degree? Well might the Sun in Darkness hide,  And shut his Glories...

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