Here it is from 1840, *The School Reader, Second Book*, by Charles Walton Sanders (Google Books). Attributed therein to *Nursery Songs*, which I suspect is an earlier edition of the book by Thomas Hastings, cited here earlier in an edition of 1853. This is an abbreviated version, only four stanzas, with music.

1. By the side of a river so clear,
They carried the beautiful child,
Mid the flags and the bushes,
In an ark of bulrushes,
They left him so lonely and wild;
For the ruffians would come
If he tarried at home,
And murder that infant so dear.

2. By the side of the river so clear,
The ladies were winding their way,
When Pharaoh's daughter
Stepped down to the water,
To bathe at the close of the day:
Before it was dark,
She opened the ark,
And found a sweet infant was there.

3. By the side of the river so clear,
That infant was lonely and sad,
She took him in pity,
And thought him so pretty,
And made little Moses so glad,
She call'd him her own—
Her beautiful son,
And sent for a nurse that was near.

4. Away from the river so clear,
They carried the beautiful child,
To his own tender mother,
His sister and brother,
And then he looked happy and smil'd;
His mother so good,
Did all that she could,
To nurse him and teach him with care.