University of Virginia Library

PSALM CXXXVII.

Where Babylon's proud water flows,
We sate and wept, while in us rose
The dear remembrance of thy name,
O fair, O lost, Jerusalem!
Our silent harps the willows bore,
Whose boughs along th' extended shore
Their shades outspread: when thus the Foe
Insulting aggravates our woe:
“Come, tune to mirth your sullen tongue;
“Rise, Hebrew slaves, and give the song;
“Such strains as wont your fane to fill,
“On captive Sion's boasted Hill.”
How shall we yield to the demand?
How, exiles in a heathen Land,
Presume the Heav'n-taught song to raise,
And desecrate the hallow'd lays?
If Sion from my breast depart,
Forget my hand its tuneful art:
Fast to my palate cleave my tongue,
If, when I form my sprightliest song,
Aught to my mirth supply a theme,
But Thou, O lov'd Jerusalem.
Think, Lord, O think, when Sion lay
Abandon'd to the dreadful day,
How, as thy heaviest wrath she tried,
“Down, down, exulting Edom cried,
“Down let the hated City fall,
“And level to the dust her wall.”
Daughter of Babylon, that woe,
Depress'd, consum'd, thyself shalt know,
Which We, dire Murth'ress, found from Thee:
And Blest, who shall by God's Decree
Warn from thy fate each distant Land
To dread the Justice of his hand;
Commission'd lead the slaughter on,
And dash thine Infants on the stone.