Songs of Exile/Hymn of Weeping
HYMN
OF
WEEPING
Amittai ben Shefatia lived about at the end of the eleventh century. He recited his own compositions in the synagogue as Chazan. This Hymn occurs in the Neïlah Service of the Day of Atonement, and has for basis and refrain the following Biblical passage: “The Lord, the Lord, a God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and acquitting. . . . And pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance”—Exodus xxxiv, 6, 7, 9.
Stanza 1, line 1, Psalm lxxvii, 3.
Stanza 4, line 2, Psalm lvi, 8.
Hymn of Weeping
By Amittai
LORD, I remember, and am sore amazed
To see the cities stand in haughty state,
And God's own city to the low grave razed:—
Yet in all time we look to Thee and wait.
Spirit of mercy! rise in might! awake!
Plead to thy Master in our mournful plaint,
And crave compassion for thy people's sake;
Each head is weary, and each heart is faint.
I rest upon my pillars—love and grace,
Upon the flood of ever-flowing tears;
I pour out prayer before His searching face,
And through the fathers' merit lull my fears.
O Thou Who hearest weeping, healest woe!
Our tears within Thy vase of crystal store;
Save us; and all Thy dread decrees forego,
For unto Thee our eyes turn evermore.