1 I want the weeping prophet's heart:
O might my Lord to me impart
Thy bleeding sympathy!
On me, Thou Man of griefs, bestow
The spring of tears, the depth of woe,
The love that was in Thee.

2 I would our desolate Sion mourn
By vile intestine vipers torn,
By endless tempests tost,
A Babel of religious strife,
Buried in forms, whose power and life
Of godliness is lost.

3 Or if Thou hast a few restored,
Yet stranger to their bleeding Lord
The multitude remain,
Dead to a God they never knew,
People, and priests, and princes too
Are numbered with the slain.

4 For these I would in secret grieve,
Their burden all day long receive,
For these incessant pray,
And many a mournful vigil keep,
Water my couch with tears, and weep
My pensive life away.

5 Only regard my dying cries,
And bid the ruin'd church arise
Which more than life I love,
Call all her sons out of their grave,
And this whole house of Israel save
To sing Thy praise above.