PSALM CXXXVII.

223

Psalm crrrvii.

"By the Rivers of Babylon."

WE sat us down and wept

Where Babel's waters slept,

And we thought of home and Zion as a longgone, happy dream;

We hung our harps in air

On the willow boughs which there, Gloomy as round a sepulchre, were drooping o'er the stream.

The foes, whose chain we wore,
Were with us on that shore,

Exulting in our tears that told the bitterness of

woe.

"Sing us," they cried aloud,

"Ye once so high and proud,

The songs ye sang in Zion ere we laid her glory low."

And shall the harp of heaven,

To Judah's monarch given,

Be touch'd by captive fingers, or grace a fetter'd hand?

No! sooner be my tongue

Mute, powerless, unstrung,

Than its words of holy music make glad a stranger

land.

May this right hand, whose skill

Can wake the harp at will,

And bid the listeners' joys or griefs in light or darkness come,

Forget its godlike power,

If, for one brief, dark hour,

My heart forgets Jerusalem, fallen city of my home!

COUNT each affliction, whether light or grave,
God's messenger sent down to thee. Do thou
With courtesy receive him; rise and bow,
And ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave
Permission first his heavenly feet to lave.

Then lay before him all thou hast. Allow
No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow,
Or mar thy hospitality; no wave

Of mortal tumult to obliterate

The soul's marmorean calmness. Grief should be,

Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate,

Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free; Strong to consume small troubles, to commend Great thoughts, grave thoughts, lasting to the

end.

Thou God Seest Me.

O GOD unseen, but not unknown,
Thine eye is ever fixed on me;
I dwell beneath thy secret throne,
Encompassed by thy Deity.

Throughout this universe of space
To nothing am I long allied;

For flight of time, and change of place,
My strongest, dearest bonds divide.

Parents I had, but where are they?

Friends whom I knew I know no more; Companions once that cheer'd my way Have dropp'd behind, or gone before.

Now I am one amid the crowd

Of life and action, hurrying round: Now left alone,-for, like a cloud,

They came, they went, and are not found.