When wounded sore the stricken soul

When wounded sore the stricken soul

Author: Cecil Frances Alexander (1858)
Published in 103 hymnals

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Representative Text

1 When wounded sore the stricken heart
lies bleeding and unbound,
one only hand, a piercèd hand,
can salve the sinner's wound.

2 When sorrow swells the laden breast,
and tears of anguish flow,
one only heart, a broken heart,
can feel the sinner's woe.

3 When penitential grief has wept
over some foul dark spot,
one only stream, a stream of blood,
can wash away the blot.

4 'Tis Jesus' blood that washes white,
his hand that brings relief;
his heart is touched with all our joys,
and feels for all our grief.

5 Lift up thy bleeding hand, O Lord,
unseal that cleansing tide;
we have no shelter from our sin
but in thy wounded side.

Source: CPWI Hymnal #125

Author: Cecil Frances Alexander

As a small girl, Cecil Frances Humphries (b. Redcross, County Wicklow, Ireland, 1818; Londonderry, Ireland, 1895) wrote poetry in her school's journal. In 1850 she married Rev. William Alexander, who later became the Anglican primate (chief bishop) of Ireland. She showed her concern for disadvantaged people by traveling many miles each day to visit the sick and the poor, providing food, warm clothes, and medical supplies. She and her sister also founded a school for the deaf. Alexander was strongly influenced by the Oxford Movement and by John Keble's Christian Year. Her first book of poetry, Verses for Seasons, was a "Christian Year" for children. She wrote hymns based on the Apostles' Creed, baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Ten Commandment… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: When wounded sore the stricken soul
Author: Cecil Frances Alexander (1858)
Meter: 8.6.8.6
Language: English
Copyright: Public Domain

Notes

When wounded sore the stricken soul. Cecil F. Alexander. [Passiontide.] Appeared in her Hymns Descriptive and Devotional, &c, 1858, No. 12, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, and headed "Passion Week." It was repeated without alteration in her Legend of the Golden Prayers and Other Poems, 1859, p. 141, with the new heading "Touched with the feeling of our infirmities." It is found in many hymnbooks in Great Britain and America, and usually in an unaltered form.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Instances

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CPWI Hymnal #125

The Baptist Hymnal #228

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The Cyber Hymnal #7730

Include 100 pre-1979 instances
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