BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON. PSALM 136

Over the flowing streams
That in Babylon I found
There I sat and wept
There I watered the ground,
Remembering you
O Zion! whom I loved.
The sweeter your memory
The more it made me cry.
I cast off my festive clothes.
Donned my working garments,
And hung upon a green willow
The music of my laments,
In exchange for the hope
Of all I hoped was in you.
There love wounded me,
And there my heart was lost.
I begged love to kill me.
Since he wounded me so deeply.
And I leaped into the fire,
Knowing I would burn completely.
Thus excusing the little moth
For burning in the flame.
To myself I was thus dying.
While inhaling from you new breath,
For you in me I was dying
And for you once more I revived,
For by remembering you
Life was given and taken away.
(I was dying to die
This my life was killing me.
For as long as it would last
It deprived me of your sight.)
Strangers were glad while
They were my captors.
(I wondered if they were blind,
Deceived by their joy.)
They would ask me for songs
I used to sing in Zion:
"Sing a song from Zion,
Let's hear how it sounds,"
"Tell me how, in exile.
Where I cry for Zion,
Can I sing the joy
That in Zion I left?"
I would be forgetting
If made happy in a strange land May the
tongue of my speech
Cling to my palate.
If I ever forget you
In this land where I suffer.
Zion, by the green branches
That Babylon gave me,
Let my right arm forget me,
I loved them most when free,
If I would not remember you,
In what I enjoyed most,
And if I celebrate a feast day
Without memory of you.
O daughter of Babylon,
Miserable, doomed!
He was blessed
In whom I set my trust,
And you will receive the punishment.
He received at your hand.
He will gather the little ones
And me, those you forced to weep.
Around the rock, who is Christ
And for whom I had to leave

Debetur soli gloria vera Deo