By Babel’s Streams

(Paraphrase of Psalm 137.)

I

BY Babel’s streams we sat, we wept,

Rememb’ring Zion’s fallen state:

We hung the harp whose music slept

On willows ’neath whose solemn shade

We talked of Zion’s glory.

The captor cruel mocked the sigh

And bade us sing of Zion’s songs.

With breaking hearts we made reply

“To Zion’s land alone belongs

The sounds of Zion’s glory.”

III

How can we from the harp-string wake

In stranger’s land the sacred lay?

Each harp-string, aye, our hearts would break

Before our fingers would obey,

For lost is Zion’s glory.

O Salem! If thy sacred land

Forgotten be, if false we prove

May memory fail,—may palsied hand

And dastard tongues refuse to move,

If we forget thy glory.