The poetical works of John and Charles Wesley

Fast by the Babylonish tide,
(The tide our sorrows made o'erflow,)
We dropp'd our weary limbs, and cried,
In deep distress at Sion's woe;
Her we bewail'd in speechless groans,
In bondage with her captive sons.

253

Our harps, no longer vocal now,
We cast aside untuned, unstrung,
Forgot them pendant on the bough:
Let meaner sorrows find a tongue!
Silent we sat, and scorn'd relief,
In all the majesty of grief.

In vain our haughty lords required
A song of Sion's sacred strain:—
“Sing us a song your God inspired.”
How shall our souls exult in pain?
How shall the mournful exiles sing,
While bond-slaves to a foreign king?

Jerusalem, dear hallow'd name,
Thee if I ever less desire,
If less distress'd for thee I am,
Let my right hand forget its lyre,
All its harmonious strains forego,
When heedless of a mother's woe!

O England's desolate Church! if thee,
Though desolate, I remember not,
Let me, so lost to piety,
Be lost myself, and clean forgot!
Cleave to the roof my speechless tongue.
When Sion is not all my song!

Let life itself with language fail,
For thee when I forbear to mourn:
Nay, but I will for ever wail,
Till God thy captive state shall turn;
Let this my every breath employ,
To grieve for thee be all my joy!

254

O for the weeping prophet's strains,
The depth of sympathetic woe!
I live to gather thy remains,
For thee my tears and blood shall flow;
My heart amidst the ruin lies,
And only in thy rise I rise!

Remember, Lord, the cruel pride
Of Edom in our evil day:
“Down with it to the ground!” they cried,
“Let none the tottering ruin stay!
Let none the sinking church restore,
But let it fall to rise no more!”

Surely our God shall vengeance take
On those that gloried in our fall;
He a full end of sin shall make,
Of all that held our souls in thrall.
O Babylon, thy day shall come;
Prepare to meet thy final doom!

Happy the man that sees in thee
The mystic Babylon within;
And, fill'd with holy cruelty,
Disdains to spare the smallest sin,
But sternly takes thy little ones,
And dashes all against the stones.

Thou in thy turn shalt be brought low,
Thy kingdom shall not always last;
The Lord shall all thy power o'erthrow,
And lay the mighty waster waste;
Destroy thy being with thy power,
And pride and self shall be no more.

University of Virginia Library

PSALM CXXXVII.

[Fast by the Babylonish tide]