The Battle Hymn of the Republic
‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
‘I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
‘I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”
‘He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat:
O, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
‘In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
This poem is in the public domain.
Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe was born on May 27, 1819, in New York City to poet Julia Rush Ward and prominent banker Samuel Ward. She was an American poet and author, best known for writing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” (the Atlantic Monthly, 1862). She was also an abolitionist, social activist, and co-founder of the American Woman Suffrage Association. Howe was the author of several books of poetry, essays, and biographies including From Sunset Ridge (Houghton Mifflin, 1898) and Passion-Flowers (Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1854).