_By a Schoolboy._
"Fast by thy stream, O Babylon! reclining,
Woe-begone exile, to the gale of evening
Only responsive, my forsaken harp I
Hung on the willows.
"Gush'd the big tear-drops as my soul remember'd
Zion, thy mountain-paradise, my country!
When the fierce bands Assyrian who led us
Captive from Salem
"Claim'd in our mournful bitterness of anguish
Songs and unseason'd madrigals of joyance--
'Sing the sweet-temper'd carols that ye wont to
Warble in Zion.'
"Dumb be my tuneful eloquence, if ever
Strange echoes answer to a song of Zion,
Blasted this right hand, if I should forget thee,
Land of my fathers!"