Made Salem's high places his prey,
And ye, Oh her desolate daughters,
Were scattered all weeping away.
—Written April, 1814. It was the fashion then for musical societies to call on the popular poets for contributions, and tunes were composed for them, though these have practically passed into oblivion.
Byron's ringing ballad (from II Kings 19:35)—
Th' Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,
—has been so much a favorite for recitation and declamation that the loss of its tune is never thought of.
Another poetic rendering of the “Captivity Psalm” is worthy of notice among the lay hymns not unworthy to supplement clerical sermons. It was written by the Hon. Joel Barlow in 1799, and published in a pioneer psalm-book at Northampton, Mass. It is neither a translation nor properly a hymn but a poem built upon the words of the Jewish lament, and really reproducing something of its plaintive beauty. Two stanzas of it are as follows:
Along the banks where Babel's current flows