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Speed Your Journey

Also known as the “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves”, is a chorus from the opera Nabucco (1842) by Giuseppe Verdi. It recollects the period of Babylonian captivity after the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BC.

Lyrics

Speed your journey, my thoughts and my longings
Speed your journey to mountains and valley
Where the sweet scented air breathes a fragrance
O’er the homes that we knew long ago.

To the waters of Jordan bear greetingS
To the downfallen temples of Zion
Oh my country so fair and so wretched
Oh ew-membrance of joy and of woe.

Golden harps of the Prophets oh tell me
Why so silent you hang from the willows
Once again sing the song of our homeland
Sing again of the days that are past.

We have drunk from the cup of affliction
And have shed bitter tears of repentance
Oh inspire us Jehova with courage
So that we may endure to the last.
So that we may endure to the last
May endure to the last.

Here is a version by the Barry Male Voice Choir

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The choir is a registered charity

The Ku-ring-gai Male Choir acknowledges Australia’s First Nations Peoples – the First Australians – as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land and gives respect to the Elders – past, present and emerging – and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.