University of Virginia Library

Remember, Lord, what's come upon us; see,

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Ponder the greatness of our infamie.
Strangers inherit that which is our due,

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Our habitation's turn'd to aliens too.
For we are Orphanes, and all fatherless,

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Our Mothers are as Widows in distress.
We buy our water, (O unhappy fate!)

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And purchase fewel at too dear a rate.
Our necks are persecuted and unblest,

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And still we labor, but obtain no rest.
Unto the Egyptians we our hand have spread,

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Desiring to be satisfied with bread.
Our buried fathers sin'd in former times,

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And we have born the burthen of their crimes.
Servants have rul'd us, and there's none that will

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Deliver us, but let them rule us still.
VVith peril of our lives, we have obtain'd

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Our bread, because the sword was unrestrain'd.
Our skins are black, like to an oven, and dry,

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Because the Famine caus'd a Tyranny.
[illeg.]ion and Judahs daughters have been led

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Away, and violently ravished.
Princes are hang'd up by the hands; the faces

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Of Elders have no honor, but disgraces.

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They made the young men grinde; the childrens blood

Fainted beneath the burthen of their wood.

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The Elders at their gates did not abide,

The young mens musick too is layd aside.

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The joy is ceas'd which was our hearts relief,

Our active dancing's turn'd to passive grief.

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The crown is fallen from our heads; and wo,

Wo be to us that have offended so.

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Our hearts are faint, and our suffused eyes

Are dim, because of these calamities.

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Because that Sions mountain's desolate,

The foxes walk thereon to recreate

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Themselves: But thou O Lord shalt sit on high,

Upon thy throne, unto Eternity.

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Wherefore dost thou forsake us, and demure

Thy self so long from us that seem secure?

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Turn thou, and we are turn'd; Lord we implore,

Renew our days, as thou hast done before.

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But thou hast quite rejected us, and thou

Beholdst thy servants with an angry brow.