View source for Down by the River's Verdant Side

=Lyrics=
* Copyright: [[Public Domain]]
==Lyrics from [[A Collection of Sacred Hymns for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Europe, 1840]]==
Hymn 268<br>
[[Irregular Meters|P.M.]]<br>
1. By the river's verdant side,<br>
By the solitary tide,<br>
While the peaceful waters slept,<br>
Pensively we sat and wept:<br>
And on the bending willows hung,<br>
Our silent harps through grief unstrung.

2. For they who wasted Zion's bowers,<br>
And laid in dust her ruined towers,<br>
In scorn their weary slaves desire,<br>
To strike the chords of Israel's lyre;<br>
And in their impious ears to sing,<br>
The sacred songs of Zion's king.

3. How shall we tune those lofty strains,<br>
On Babylon's polluted plains?<br>
When low in ruin on the earth,<br>
Lies the place that gave us birth,<br>
And stern destruction's iron hand,<br>
Sways our desolated land.

4. Oh! never shall our harps awake,<br>
Laid in the dust for Zion's sake,<br>
For ever on the willows hung,<br>
Their music hushed, their chords unstrung.<br>
Lost Zion! city of our God,<br>
While groaning 'neath the tyrant's rod;

5. Still mould'ring lie thy levelled walls,<br>
And ruin stalks along thy halls,<br>
And brooding o'er thy ruined towers,<br>
Desolation sternly lowers;<br>
For when we muse upon thy woe,<br>
Fast the gushing sorrows flow.

6. And while we toil through wretched life,<br>
Drinking the bitter cup of strife;<br>
Until we yield our weary breath,<br>
And sleep, released from woe, in death,<br>
Will Zion in our memory stand,<br>
Our lost, our ruined native land.

[[category:Hymns]]
[[category:Lyrics]]
[[category:Public Domain]]
[[category:Public Domain Lyrics]]
[[category:Irregular Meters]]