Now, his years of life perfected,
Our atonement's price to be,
By the doom long since elected,
Bound and nailed to set us free,
Christ, our victim, hangs rejected
On the Cross of Calvary.

Gall he drinks; his strength subduing,
Reed and thorn and nail and spear
Plot his gentle frame's undoing
Blood and water thence appear
With their cleansing tide renewing
Earth and sea and starry sphere.

Hail, true Cross, of beauty rarest,
King of all the forest trees;
Leaf and fl'r and fruit thou bearest,
Medicine for a world's disease,
Fairest wood, and iron fairest-
yet more fair, who hung and these.

Bend thy branches down to meet him,
Bend that stubborn heart of thine;
Let thy native force, to greet him
All its ruggedness resign;
Gently let thy wood entreat him,
Royal suff’rer, and divine.

Victim of our race, he deigned
On thy arms to lay his head;
Thou the ark, whose refuge gained,
Sinful man no more may dread;
Ark, whose planks are deeply stainėd
With the blood the Lamb hath shed.

Honour, glory, might and merit
To th'eternal Trinity,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Throned in heav'n co-equally
All that doth the world inherit,
Praise one-God in Persons three.