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 has loosed the fateful lightening
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 built him an altar
In the evening dews and damps.
I have read his righteous sentence
By dim and flaring lamps.
His day is marching on.
Glory, glory, hallelujah.
Glory, glory, hallelujah.
Glory, glory, hallelujah.
His truth is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel
Writ in burnished rows of steel.
As ye deal with my contemptors,
So with you my grace shall deal.
Let the hero, born of woman,
Crush the serpent with his heel,
Since my 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.
Oh, be swift, my soul.
To answer him be jubilant, my feet.
Our God is marching on.
Glory, glory, hallelujah.
Glory, glory, hallelujah.
Glory, glory, hallelujah.
His truth is marching on.
His truth is marching on.
Julia Ward
On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Baptist minister and political activist, rose to speak in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. ‘I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land,’ King announced. ‘And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.’ And then he closed in his lyrical voice: ‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.’ The next day he lay dying on the second floor of the Lorraine Motel, struck in the cheek by an assassin’s bullet.
The last line that King ever spoke in public came from the song ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic,’ written by Julia Ward Howe in 1861. It was a fitting finale to the life of a great American because the story of the ‘Battle Hymn’ is the story of the United States. The song, now approaching its 150th anniversary, is a hallowed treasure and a second national anthem. The country has turned to it repeatedly in national crises. The ‘Battle Hymn’ has inspired suffragists and labour organisers, civil rights leaders and novelists, for example John Steinbeck in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’.
Since time immemorial the snake has been a symbol of the wisdom and truth of the Great Mother of all life. No matter how hard the religions of our world, during the times of the patriarchy with its all-male Divinity, tried to crush under the Mother’s love, kindness and wisdom under its boots, it cannot be suppressed forever. The truth will always be out in the end and with the arrival of the Age of Aquarius the time is right for its emergence.
To me, this song is the epitome of a battle hymn for our whole world and Martin’s vision of the Promised Land is not merely for Christians but all humankind. And although this song is not at all my kind of music, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s interpretation moves me to tears, each time I listen to it. To my mind it’s one of the finest pieces of choral music altogether. What appeals to me most about it that yes, God’s truth does keep marching on. Irrespective of how hard the religions of our world have always tried to keep us away from it and no doubt will continue to do for a while, it is now with us for all to see whose perception of life has sufficiently opened.
Recommended Viewing:
• ‘The Battle Hymn Of The Republic’
Recommended Reading:
• ‘The Symbolism Of Snakes’
This article is a chapter from ‘Our World In Transition'
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