By the Babylonian Rivers

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By the Babylonian rivers

Author: Ewald Bash (1964)
Tune: KAS DZIEDAJA
Published in 26 hymnals

Audio files: Recording

Piano/Organ
	Three Lenten Hymn Settings for Organ, Se…

Representative Text

1 By the Babylonian rivers
we sat down in grief and wept;
hung our harps upon a willow,
mourned for Zion while we slept.

2 There our captors, in derision,
did require of us a song;
so we sat with staring vision
and the days were hard and long.

3 How shall we sing the Lord's song
in a strange and bitter land;
can our voices veil the sorrow?
Lord God, hear your lonely band.

Source: In Every Corner Sing: songs of God's world #63

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Author: Ewald Bash

Ewald J. Bash (Indiana, 1924-- ). A poet and also an occasional writer of folk melodies, his personal interests arose in the era of return to genuine folk music of the early Sixties and continued into the Seventies during the time of turmoil and crisis. His lyrics, set to a Latvian folk song, "Hymn for Those in Captivity," appears in Cantate Domine. He also composed hymns which have appeared in the hymnals of a number of communions. He was part of a folk liturgical movement in the Lutheran Church and contributed much to a development of such moods in an early work, Songs for Today. Certain of his work has also appeared in Jerusalem/Babylon: Handbook for a Christian in the Urban World. --Ewald J. Bash, DNAH Archives In a letter from Ba… Go to person page >

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Related Texts

First Line:	By the Babylonian rivers
Title:	By the Babylonian Rivers
Author:	Ewald Bash (1964)
Meter:	8.7.8.7
Place of Origin:	United States
Language:	English
Notes:	French translation: "Sur des rives étrangères" by Daniel Hameline; Spanish translation: "En ribera babilonia" by John Glaser
Copyright:	From "Songs for Today," © 1964 American Lutheran Church. Reprinted by permission of Augsburg Fortress.

English

10 shown out of 21

French

Community of Christ Sings #198

Spanish

Community of Christ Sings #198

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Notes

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By the Babylonian rivers

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Tune

KAS DZIEDAJA

CAPTIVITY is a traditional Latvian folk tune; it is also known as KAS DZIEDAJA from the Latvian poem associated with the tune. The title CAPTIVITY is derived from its more recent use (especially in post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism) with Ewald Bash's paraphrase of Psalm 137, which begins "By the Bab…

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