Psalm 137. Super flumina Babylonis.

1. Upon the banks of Babylon
   We sat with painful sighing,
   As we bethought us of Zion,
   Our hearts within us crying;
   There did we hang with heavy mood
   Our cheerful harps and psalt’ries good
   From ’neath the willows’ cover
   Which lie within that people’s place
   Where grievous shame and much disgrace
   We daily from them suffer.

2. They who had held us captive long
   In lands to us so mournful
   Desired of us a cheerful song
   With words both cruel and scornful
   And sought in midst of tearfulness
   A joyful song in our distress.
   “Ah! Ply us now with singing,
   A song of praise, a lovely lay
   Your poets made in Zion’s day,
   With joyous measures ringing.”

3. How could we in such grievous straits
   And woes as now are pressing
   Sing to the Lord a song of praise
   In foreign lands distressing?
   Jerusalem, if I should thee
   Forget, may God forget e’en me,
   In this my life me leaving.
   If I should cease rememb’ring thee,
   Then may my tongue hang uselessly,
   And to my throat be cleaving,

4. Yea, if I seek not earnestly,
   Jerusalem, thy favor,
   As I begin each joyous lay
   From now on and forever.
   Remember Edom’s children in
   The day, Lord, of Jerusalem,
   Who wickedly were speaking:
   “Lay bare, lay bare, let naught be found
   But that we’ve cast unto the ground,
   All her foundations breaking!”

5. Thou daughter foul of Babylon,
   Condemned to devastation,
   How richly blest shall be the one
   Who gives thee compensation
   For all thine overweening pride,
   And renders unto thee in kind
   As thou to us hast rendered.
   Blest he who binds thy little ones
   And dashes them against the stones.
   Thou shalt not be remembered.

An Wasserflüssen Babylon
Wolfgang Dachstein, 1525
Tr. Christopher J. Neuendorf, 2015