Hymn IV.

Behold, where breathing love divine

Our dying Master stands!

His weeping followers gathering round

Receive his last commands.

From that mild teacher’s parting lips

What tender accents fell!

The gentle precept which he gave

Became its author well.

“Blest is the man, whose softening heart

Feels all another’s pain;

To whom the supplicating eye

Was never rais’d in vain.

“Whose breast expands with generous warmth

A stranger’s woes to feel;

And bleeds in pity o’er the wound

He wants the power to heal.

“He spreads his kind supporting arms

To every child of grief;

His secret bounty largely flows,

And brings unask’d relief.

“To gentle offices of love

His feet are never slow;

He views thro’ mercy’s melting eye

A brother in a foe.

“Peace from the bosom of his God,

My peace to him I give;

And when he kneels before the throne,

His trembling soul shall live.

“To him protection shall be shewn,

And mercy from above

Descend on those who thus fulfil

The perfect law of love.”

Text: Poems by Anna Laetitia Barbauld. New Ed. (London: Printed for Joseph Johnson, St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1792), pp. 121-23.