Moerentes oculi spargite lachrymas

Now let us sit and weep,
And fill our hearts with woe;
Pondering the shame, and torments deep,
Which God from wicked men did undergo.

See! how the multitude,
With swords and staves, draw nigh;
See! how they smite, with buffets rude,
That head divine of awful majesty:

How, bound with cruel cord,
Christ to the scourge is given;
And ruffians lift their hands, unaw’d,
Against the King of kings and Lord of Heaven.

Hear it! ye people, hear!
Our good and gracious God,
Silent beneath the lash severe,
Stands with his sacred shoulders drench’d in blood.

O scene for tears! but now
The sinful race contrive
A torment new: deep in his brow,
With all their force, the jagged thorns they drive.

Then roughly dragg’d to death,
Christ on the Cross is slain;
And, as He dies, with parting breath,
Into his Father’s hands gives back his soul again.

To Him who so much bore,
To gain for sinners grace,
Be praise and glory evermore,
From the whole universal human race.