| Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917. | | | | By Babel’s Streams | | By H. Pereira Mendes |
| | (Paraphrase of Psalm 137.)
I BY Babel’s streams we sat, we wept, | |
| Rememb’ring Zion’s fallen state: | |
| We hung the harp whose music slept | |
| On willows ’neath whose solemn shade | |
| We talked of Zion’s glory. | 5 |
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II The captor cruel mocked the sigh | |
| And bade us sing of Zion’s songs. | |
| With breaking hearts we made reply | |
| “To Zion’s land alone belongs | |
| The sounds of Zion’s glory.” | 10 |
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III How can we from the harp-string wake | |
| In stranger’s land the sacred lay? | |
| Each harp-string, aye, our hearts would break | |
| Before our fingers would obey, | |
| For lost is Zion’s glory. | 15 |
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IV O Salem! If thy sacred land | |
| Forgotten be, if false we prove | |
| May memory fail,—may palsied hand | |
| And dastard tongues refuse to move, | |
| If we forget thy glory. | 20 | | | |
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