"By the Waters of Babylon"
In the valley of waters we wept on the dayWhen the host of the Stranger made Salem his prey;And our heads on our bosoms all droopingly lay,And our hearts were so full of the land far away!
The song they demanded in vain--it lay stillIn our souls as the wind that hath died on the hill--They called for the harp--but our blood they shall spillEre our right hands shall teach them one tone of their skill.
All stringlessly hung in the willow's sad tree,As dead as her dead-leaf, those mute harps must be:Our hands may be fettered--our tears still are freeFor our God--and our Glory--and Sion, Oh Thee!
Words in this poem
- droopingly adv.
- In a drooping manner.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- spill n.
- A bit of wood split off; a splinter. [sq. root170. Cf. Spell a splinter.]
- fettered a.
- Seeming as if fettered, as the feet pf certain animals which bend backward, and appear unfit for walking.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
"By the Waters of Babylon" is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 3, Project Gutenberg ebook #21811; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lord Byron, "By the Waters of Babylon", in The Giaour, and Other Poems (1816), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21811, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-works-3/by-the-waters-of-babylon.html, id L23963.
Form and metre
"By the Waters of Babylon" is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AAAA dayA · preyA · layA · awayA
- 2 AAAA stillA · hillA · spillA · skillA
- 3 AAAA treeA · beA · freeA · theeA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| In the valley of waters we wept on the day | 12 | ··/˘·/˘····· |
| When the host of the Stranger made Salem his prey; | 12 | ·····/˘·/˘·· |
| And our heads on our bosoms all droopingly lay, | 13 | ·/··/˘/˘·/˘˘· |
| And our hearts were so full of the land far away! | 13 | ·/˘········˘/ |
| The song they demanded in vain--it lay still | 11 | ···˘/˘····· |
| In our souls as the wind that hath died on the hill-- | 13 | ·/˘·········· |
| They called for the harp--but our blood they shall spill | 12 | ······/˘···· |
| Ere our right hands shall teach them one tone of their skill. | 13 | ·/˘·········· |
| All stringlessly hung in the willow's sad tree, | 11 | ·······/··· |
| As dead as her dead-leaf, those mute harps must be: | 11 | ··········· |
| Our hands may be fettered--our tears still are free | 13 | /˘···/˘/˘···· |
| For our God--and our Glory--and Sion, Oh Thee! | 13 | ·/˘··/˘/˘···· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.