The Battle Hymn of the Republic

He is tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fatal 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 judgement seat:

Oh, 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.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave;

He is wisdom to the mighty, he is succour to the brave;

So the world shall be his footstool, and the soul of time his slave;

Our God is marching on.

By

Julia Ward Howe