Song of the Jewish Captives

WE sat us down by Babel’s streams

And dreamed soul-saddening memory’s dreams;

And dark thoughts o’er our spirits crept

Of Sion—and we wept, we wept!

Our harps upon the willows hung

Silent, and tuneless, and unstrung;

For they who wrought our pains and wrongs,

Asked us for Sion’s pleasant songs.

How can we sing Jehovah’s praise

To those who Baal’s altars raise?

How warble Judah’s freeborn hymns,

With Babel’s fetters on our limbs?

How chant thy lays, dear Fatherland,

To strangers on a foreign strand?

Ah no! we’ll bear grief’s keenest string,

But dare not Sion’s anthems sing.

Place us where Sharon’s roses blow;

Place us where Siloe’s waters flow;

Place us on Lebanon, that waves

Its cedars o’er our fathers’ graves:

Place us upon that holy mount,

Where stand the temple, gleams the fount;

And love and joy shall loose our tongues,

To warble Sion’s pleasant songs.