{
 "id": "mary-weston-fordham/by-the-waters-of-babylon",
 "title": "“By the Waters of Babylon”",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Mary Weston Fordham",
 "poet_slug": "mary-weston-fordham",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Magnolia Leaves",
 "book_slug": "magnolia-leaves",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 30,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1897,
  "venue": "Magnolia Leaves (1897)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/magnolialeavespo00ford"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/mary-weston-fordham_magnolia-leaves",
  "file": "magnolia-leaves.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/mary-weston-fordham-magnolia-leaves-full-text-1897-preface-by-booker-t-washington",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006775637"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 12,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "By the Rivers of Babylon we mournfully bent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With “harps on the willows” and vesture all rent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For burdened by sorrow and saddened by pain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We felt that we no more could strike them again.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This, this is a strange land, we will not then sing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One song of our Zion, the home of our King,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No rather let right hand its cunning forget,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than we to our loved home as recreants act.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O! City of God, though as captives we go,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Jerusalem’s weal we’ll never forego,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O! soon may the exiles of Israel return,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To sing Zion’s songs in their own holy land.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}