| |
| BY Euphrates’ flowry side | |
| We did bide, | |
| From deare Judah far absented, | |
| Tearing th’ aire with mournful cries, | |
| And our eies | 5 |
| With their streames the streame augmented: | |
| When poore Sion’s doleful state, | |
| Desolate, | |
| Sacked, burned, and enthralled, | |
| And thy temple spoil’d, which we | 10 |
| Ne’er should see, | |
| To our mirthles mindes we called. | |
| |
| Our mute harpes, vntun’d, vnstrung, | |
| Vp we hoong | |
| On greene willowes neare beside vs, | 15 |
| When, we sitting so forlorne, | |
| Thus in scorne | |
| Our prowd spoilers ’gan deride vs:— | |
| |
| Come, sad captives, leaue your groans, | |
| And your moanes | 20 |
| Vnder Sion’s ruynes bury; | |
| To your harps sing vs some layes | |
| In the praise | |
| Of our God, and let’s be merry. | |
| |
| Can, ah! can we leaue our groanes, | 25 |
| And our moanes | |
| Vnder Sion’s ruynes bury? | |
| Can we in this land sing laies | |
| To the praise | |
| Of our God, and here be merry? | 30 |
| |
| No, deare Salem! if I faile | |
| To bewaile | |
| Thine affliction miserable, | |
| Let my nimble joynts become | |
| Stiffe and nombe, | 35 |
| To touch warbling harp vnable. | |
| |
| Let my tongue lose singing skill; | |
| Let it still | |
| To my parched rooffe be glewed, | |
| If in either harpe or voice | 40 |
| I rejoyce, | |
| Till thy joyes shall be renewed. | |
| |
| Lord, plague Edom’s traitrous kind; | |
| Beare in mind | |
| In our ruyne how they revell’d: | 45 |
| Kill, sack, burne! they cride out still, | |
| Sack, burne, kill; | |
| Downe with all, let all be levelled! | |
| |
| And thou, Babel, when the tide | |
| Of thy pride, | 50 |
| Now a flowing, falls to turning, | |
| Victor now, shalt then be thrall, | |
| And shalt fall | |
| To as lowe an ebb of mourning. | |
| |
| Happie man, who shall thee wast | 55 |
| As thou hast | |
| Vs without all mercie wasted, | |
| And shall make thee tast and see | |
| What by thee, | |
| Wee, poor wee, haue seene and tasted! | 60 |
| |
| Happie, who thy tender barnes | |
| From the armes | |
| Of their wayling mothers tearing, | |
| ’Gainst the walls shall dash their bones, | |
| Rutheles stones | 65 |
| With their braynes and blood besmearing. | |
| |
