Author: Augustus M. Toplady, 1776
Composer: Thomas Hastings, 1815; Tune: TOPLADY; Meter: 777777
Download the sheet music as a pdf file Rock of Ages 
Listen to the tune:
Notes: The title to this great old hymn may be familiar to many, but the original words are known by a very few. Surely no hymn has suffered greater at the hands of revisionists editors than Rock of Ages. In this version only the second and third lines of the fourth stanza has been altered from the original, as Toplady originally penned it: “When my eye-strings break in death”, and “When I soar to tracts unknown.”
Rock of Ages, cleft for me
Let me hide myself in thee;
Let the water and the blood,
From thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and pow’r.
Not the labors of my hands
Can fulfil thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears for ever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and thou alone.
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to thee for dress,
Helpless, look to thee for grace;
Foul, I to the Fountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.
While I draw this fleeting breath,
When mine eyelids close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown,
See thee on thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee.
