Song of the Jewish Captives
VE 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.
The Jewish Captive's Song GONE is thine hour of might,
Zion, and fallen art thou;
Thy temple's sacred height
Is desecrated now.
That I should live to see
The ruins of that dome,
And Judah's children be,
Bondsmen, and slaves to Rome,
When I saw heaven's wrath descending,
Why 'scap'd I from the grave,
While thousands died defending
The shrine they could not save;
But bless'd are those who sleep
In their quiet resting place,
That they did not live to weep
O'er the scattering of their race.
MARION and CELIA Moss.
The Hebrew Minstrel's Lament
FROM the hills of the West, as the sun's setting
Cast his last ray of glory o'er Jordan's lone stream, While his fast-falling tears with its waters were blent, Thus poured a poor minstrel his saddened lament:
"Awake, harp of Judah, that slumbering hast hung On the willows that weep where thy prophets have
Once more wake for Judah thy wild notes of woe, Ere the hand that now strikes thee lies mouldering and low.
"Ah, where are the choirs of the glad and the free That woke the loud anthem responsive to thee, When the daughters of Salem broke forth in the song, While Tabor and Hermon its echoes prolong?
"And where are the mighty, who went forth in pride
To the slaughter of kings, with their ark at their side?
They sleep, lonely stream, with the sands of thy shore,
And the war-trumpet's blast shall awake them no more.
"O Judah, a lone, scattered remnant remain,
To sigh for the graves of their fathers in vain,
And to turn toward thy land with a tear-brimming eye,
And a prayer that the advent of Shiloh be nigh.
"No beauty in Sharon, on Carmel no shade;"
Our vineyards are wasted, our altars decayed;
And the heel of the heathen, insulting, has trod
On the bosoms that bled for their country and God."
ANONYMOUS.
Jewish Hymn in Babylon'
(From "Belshazzar.")
OD of thunder! from whose cloudy seat
The fiery winds of Desolation flow;
Father of vengeance, that with purple, feet
Like a full wine-press tread'st the world below; The embattled armies wait thy sign to slay, Nor springs the beast of havoc on his prey, Nor withering Famine walks his blasted way, Till thou hast marked the guilty land for woe.
God of the rainbow! at whose gracious sign
The billows of the proud their rage suppress;
Father of mercies! at one word of thine
An Eden blooms in the waste wilderness,
And fountains sparkle in the arid sands,
And timbrels ring in maidens' glancing hands,
And marble cities crown the laughing lands,
And pillared temples rise thy name to bless.
O'er Judah's land thy thunders broke, O Lord!
The chariots rattled o'er her sunken gate,
Her sons were wasted by the Assyrian's sword,
Even her foes wept to see her fallen state;
And heaps her ivory palaces became,
Her princes wore the captive's garb of shame,
Her temples sank amid the smouldering flame,
For thou didst ride the tempest cloud of fate.
O'er Judah's land thy rainbow, Lord, shall beam,
And the sad City lift her crownless head,
And songs shall wake and dancing footsteps gleam T
In streets where broods the silence of the dead.
The sun shall shine on Salem's gilded towers,
On Carmel's side our maidens cull the flowers
To deck at blushing eve their bridal bowers,
And angel feet the glittering Sion tread.
Thy vengeance gave us to the stranger's hand,
And Abraham's children were led forth for slaves,
With, fettered steps we left our pleasant land,
Envying our fathers in their peaceful graves;
The stranger's bread with bitter tears we steep,
And when our weary eyes should sink to sleep,
In the mute midnight we steal forth to weep,
Where the pale willows shade Euphrates' waves.
The horn in sorrow shall bring forth in joy;
Thy mercy, Lord, shall lead thy children home;
He that went forth a tender prattling boy
Yet ere he die, to Salem's streets shall come;
And Canaan's vines for us their fruit shall bear,
And Hermon's bees their honeyed stores prepare,
And we shall kneel again in thankful prayer,
Where o'er the cherub-seated God full blazed the irradiate dome.
Oh! Weep for Those
OH! weep for those that wept by Babel's stream,
Whose shrines are desolate, whose land a dream;
Weep for the harp of Judah's broken shell;
Mourn where their God hath dwelt, the godless dwell!
And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet?
And when shall Zion's songs again seem sweet?.
And Judah's melody once more rejoice
The hearts that leap'd before its heavenly voice?
Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast,
How shall ye flee away and be at rest?
The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox his cave,
Mankind their country-Israel but the grave!
"Comfort Ye-Comfort Ye, my people."-Isaiah,
Y Babel's streams, thy children wept,
And mute, O Israel, was thy choir,
While as thy weary exiles slept,
And on the willow hung thy lyre,
A seraph's voice, soft as the dew,
Fell on their dreams with "Na-ha-moo."
No song made glad that mournful voice,
No ease was for that bruised breast,
Till He who bade thee to rejoice
Sent forth on Zion His behest-
Firm as thy faith in Him was true,
Like manna fell the "Na-ha-moo."
The stranger hath usurped the seat,
Where, throned in glory, blazed the fane.
The hallowed walls, thy sacred feet,
Still guard, O Zion, still remain,
To mark the ruin and renew
The memory of thy "Na-ha-moo."
God's mercy shines a lingering beam,
The pilgrim on his path to light,
From Sinai's brow, from Jordan's stream,
From offerings of the heart contrite-
His promises our hopes imbue,
With blessings of his "Na-ha-moo."
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