For God's blessings from above
Flow, to grace the knot of love.

PSALM CXXXVII.

By Joseph Bryan.

1. By the still streams of Babylon

We mutely sat, and spent thereon,
And sent thereby our hapless tears
And sighs to neighbour-lands and ears;
When our afflicting enemy

Reneweth fresh our memory,

Set our sad minds to muse upon

Poor Sion's desolation.

2. Our harps neglected, stringless, mute,
(That whilom were so absolute)
Hung up on willows, gave no sound,
But echoes from our groans rebound.

3. We sitting, moaning, groaning thus,

Thus our captivers vexed us

With mocks and scorns, and laid on more,

Which was too sad a weight before.

Come (said they) dry your eyes, and cheer
Your drooping hearts: Come, let us hear
A song from you; yea one of them

So famous in Jerusalem.

4. How can our eye, alas, or heart,
Or clear, or cheer, or bear a part
In any mirth? or take in hand
A Sion's song in Babel's land?

5. No, dear Jerusalem, if I

Fail to bemoan thy misery,
Let my right hand forget to play
Any sweet touch, or heavenly lay.

6. Let my furr'd tongue cleave fast unto
My clammy roof, if any woo
My grief-betrothed heart to joy,
Till thou thy peace dost re-enjoy.

7. Remember, Lord, and Lord requite
The proud despiteful Edomite;

O bear in mind their tyranny,
Their savage facts, their butchery:

Their cry at Salem's ruining,

Sack, raze, and burn up every thing;

Make all one heap; let no eye see
One place from blood and ruin free.

8. And then, curs'd Babylon, though thou
In thy swoln pride, thus brav'st us now,
A darken'd wave, ne'er to renew

Thy glorious full, shall soon ensue.
Happy be he, and bless'd his hand,
That shall bring woe upon thy land;
And all endrench thy soil in blood,
And drink thy tears grown to a flood:
And in a brave disdainful rage,
Shall trample in thy vassalage,
And with a proud and cruel spite
Our wrongs in thee at full requite.

9. Happy be he; bliss him betide, That laying all remorse aside,

Shall take thy sprawling viperous brood,

And dash 'gainst stones their brains and blood.

PSALM CXLII.

By Joseph Bryan.

1. FROM out the depth of misery, I cry
To thee, O Lord, and that most earnestly;

2.

Prayers intermix'd with sighs and tears,

My soul sends up into thine ears.

I pour out all my moan

Before thee, thee alone;

And for relief

Shew thee my grief.

3. Lord, when my troubled spirit could not rest For anguish of my mind, thou knewest best

What way to help me, and didst see

A path through all, to set me free.

Thy foes and mine do lay

Snares for me in my way,
And privily

In ambush lie.

4. I look'd on every side, but I could see

None that would know, and much less succour me.

5.

My friends revolted totally,

On whom I used to rely.

All ways to 'scape by flight

Were stopp'd, and that up quite;

And none did care

My soul to spare.

6. Thus troubled, laid in wait for, desolate,
Enclosed round, and thus disconsolate,

I cried to thee, O Lord, and said,
Thou art my hope, my help, my aid,
The rock I build upon,

My lot, my portion

In this life, and

A better land.

7. O therefore hear my prayers attentively, For with contempt and weight of misery, My soul doth cleave unto the dust,

8.

Yet thou, O Lord, art all my trust.

O free me by thy might

From them, against whose spite

And violence

I have no fence.