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By Julia Ward Howe

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 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 judgment-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.


Julia Ward Howe, "Battle-Hymn of the Republic" from Later Lyrics (Boston: J. E. Tiltor and Co., 1887).

Source: Later Lyrics (J. E. Tiltor and Co, 1887)

  • Mythology & Folklore
  • Religion
  • Social Commentaries

Poet Bio

Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe was a versatile writer and activist who wrote “The Battle-Hymn of the Republic,” which became a popular Union song when it was published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862. She was born in New York City to a banker father and a poet mother. A writer from age 16, Howe was active in the anti-slavery and women’s suffrage movements. See More By This Poet

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