---
title: Times and Seasons
description: Issues of 1839 to 1840.
authors:
  - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
editors:
  - Ebenezer Robinson
  - Don Carlos Smith
  - Smith, Joseph, Jr.
  - Taylor, John
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - newspaper
  - times-and-seasons
  - nauvoo
  - nineteenth-century
periodical: Times and Seasons
volume: 1
number: 4
published: 1840-02
publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor
publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois
language: en
type: article
reference: "“For the Times and Seasons Zion in Captivity. A Lamentation by P. P. Pratt, While Chained in Prison,” *Times and Seasons* 1, no. 4 (February 1840): 64."
printed_title: For the Times and Seasons ZION IN CAPTIVITY. A LAMENTATION BY P. P. PRATT, WHILE CHAINED IN PRISON.
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1840-02_1_4
  transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v1n04.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair)
  identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1840-02_1_4
start_page: 64
end_page: 64
curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement.
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1840 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States
  source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1840-02_1_4
  publication_year: 1840
---

# For the Times and Seasons Zion in Captivity. A Lamentation by P. P. Pratt, While Chained in Prison

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Torn from our friends, and captive led How long, O Lord! will thou forsake

'Mid armed legions, bound in chains; The saints, who tremble at thy word?

That peace for which our Fathers bled, Awake! O arm of God, awake!

'Tis gone, and dire confusion reigns. And teach the nations thou art God.

Zion our peaceful happy home, Descend with all thy holy throng,

Where of't we've joined in praise and prayer, The year of thy redeemed bring near,

A desolation has become, Haste, haste, the day of vengeance on,

And grief and sorrow lingers there. Bid Zion's children dry their tears.

Her virgins sigh, her widows mourn. Deliver Lord, thy captive saints,

Her children for their parents weep; And comfort those who long have mourn'd;

In chains her priests and prophets groan, Bid Zion cease her dire complaints,

While some in death's cold arms do sleep. And all reaction cease to mourn.

Exultingly, her savage foes,

Now ravage, steal, and plunder, where

A virgins tears, and widow's woes

Become their song of triumph there.