Can any grief be greater than the one
A mother suffers standing by the tree,
A gibbet tree and see her only son
Hanging from it in shame and agony?.

What grief beyond all words must rend her heart
To see flesh of her own flesh hanging there;
Bruised mortally by cruel sword and dart
And her beloved son’s pierced by a spear.

Affliction, grief and sorrow bottomless,
To feel fulfilled what Simeon had foretold
What pain, heartbreak, untellable distress,
As crucified her son she does behold.

Oh! in the ocean of such grief time is.
All swallowed up in suffering’s abyss;
Time, - flew so very fast, she just had kissed
Her darling baby’s tiny rosy fist.

Her only son, her baby, her delight
Hangs stripped, blood covered, taunted, crucified;.
Dolor untellable, no idiom
Can tell about this mother's martyrdom.

Oh Mater Dolorosa, see your Love,-
Your cherished son and what they did to Him -
Stretched out upon the gibbet high and rough
With gashes, wounds and tears on every limb

He’d healed the blind, the mute, the deaf and lame
Rose up the unprotected to defend.
But now, he is hanging from the tree of shame
And cruel nails pierce both his feet and hands.

A crown of thorns is pressed upon His head,
His face is swollen from the brutal blows
Dealt unto Him by soldiers while they spat
On Him, and rills of blood cake on His brow.

You, who rejoiced once in His baby smell,
Attentive to your sleeping infant’s breath,
Now hear the taunts and jeers against Him swell,
And gasps of His last agony of death.

Oh pain, - oh matchless dolor woe and grief!
His body’s broken and His head is bent
Between a cursing and a rueful thief,
He hangs, - outcast,- the mother’s heart is rent!.

Lady of Sorrows! - Mother dear take care
Of those that crushed by grief and sorrow groan
And agonize,-- obtain for them their share
In the eternal glory of your son.


© Elizabeth Dandy



Stabat Mater