“By the Rivers of Babylon” (Psalm 137)
Four Versions
| Douai Bible (1609) |
By the rivers of Babylon
there we sat and wept,
remembering Zion:
on the poplars that grew there
we hung our harps.
For it was there that they asked us,
our captors, for songs,
our oppressors, for joy.
“Sing to us”, they said,
“one of Zion’s songs.”
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O how could we sing
the Song of the Lord
on alien soil?
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
O let my tongue
cleave to my mouth
if I remember you not,
If I prize not Jerusalem
above all my joys.
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| —from the St Columba Hymnal |
| Evangelical Version (US) |
By the waters of Babylon,
there we wept and there sat down;
Hung our harps on the willow trees;
Zion yet we remembered thee!
Then our captors required of us;
“Sing a song of Zion now!”
Could we sing the Eternal’s songs by the waters of Babylon?
Let my right hand forget here skill,
if Jerusalem I forget; If I fail to remember thee,
let my tongue cleave unto my mouth!
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But we thought of Jerusalem when we sat near Zion’s streams;
Far above even our chief joy, We remembered Jerusalem.
In that day of Jerusalem’s fall,
when the children of Edom said,
“Down with here, down unto the ground,
even to the foundations!”
O thou daughter of Babylon,
to thy ruin hast’ning on;
Happy he that rewardeth thee,
just as thou unto us hast done.
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| —“Music for the Church of God” [website]. |
| Lord Byron’s Version (from “Hebrew Melodies”) |
In the valley of waters we wept on the day
When the host of the Stranger made Salem his prey;
And our heads on our bosoms all droopingly lay,
And our hearts were so full of the land far away!
The song they demanded in vain – it lay still,
In our souls as the wind that hath died in the hill –
They called for the harp – but our blood they shall spill |
Ere our right hands shall teach them tone of their skill.
All stringlessly hung in the willow’s sad tree,
As dead as her dead-leaf, those mute harps must be:
Our hands may be fettered – our tears still are free
For our God – and our Glory – and Zion, Oh Thee! |
| Poetry Lovers’ Page [website] |
| King James Bible (1611) |
1. By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
2. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
3. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion .
4. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
5. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
6. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
7. Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation therefore.
8. O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou has served us.
9. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. |
ENG312C2 - University of Ulster |