| W. Garrett Horder, comp. The Poets’ Bible: New Testament. 1895. | | | | The Descent from the Cross | | Herbert Kynaston (1809–1878) |
| | | SIX weary hours extended | |
| Upon the Cross of pain, | |
| When will the day be ended, | |
| Night’s shadows come again? | |
| Would morn were eve’s declining, | 5 |
| Would God that eve were morn, | |
| His eve of life’s resigning, | |
| His Resurrection dawn. | |
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| Thrice now the congregation | |
| Has climbed the steep to prayer, | 10 |
| It is the Preparation, | |
| And yet He withers there: | |
| They say the Cross dissembles | |
| The spirit’s parting strife; | |
| And day by day still trembles | 15 |
| The hideous wreck of life. | |
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| Haste, Joseph—It is finished— | |
| The sun sinks on the wave; | |
| The time must needs be minished, | |
| The three days of the grave: | 20 |
| An eve without a morning, | |
| Of blackest midnight born; | |
| The Sabbath past, His dawning | |
| Is everlasting morn. | |
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| Blest Sepulchre! where never | 25 |
| Man’s mortal form was laid; | |
| The only Tomb for ever | |
| With Angel light arrayed; | |
| Life’s only, last defender— | |
| When graves shall be no more, | 30 |
| No earth hast thou to render, | |
| No treasure to restore. | | | | |
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