Classic Poem

[According to a note in Byron's own handwriting these stanzas are merely a variant of the preceding poem, By the Rivers of Babylon . Neither these stanzas nor those following were printed in the original collection.]

I N the valley of waters we wept o'er 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 on the hill;
They call'd for the harp — but our blood they shall spill
Ere our right hands shall teach them one tone of our skill.

All stringlessly hung on the willow's sad tree,
As dead as her dead leaf those mute harps must be;
Our hands may be fetter'd — our tears still are free
For our God and our glory — and Sion! oh thee!