Old John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering
in the grave,
While the bondmen all are weeping whom
he ventured for to save;
But though he lost his life a-fighting
for the slave,
His
soul is marching on.
Glory,
glory, Hallelujah!
Glory,
glory, Hallelujah!
Glory,
glory, Hallelujah!
His
soul is marching on.
John Brown was a hero undaunted, true
and brave,
And Kansas knew his valor when he fought
her rights to save;
And now, though the grass grows green
above his grave,
His
soul is marching on.
He captured Harper’s Ferry with
his nineteen men so few,
And frightened Old Virginia till she trembled
through and through;
They hung him for a traitor—themselves
a traitor crew,
But
his soul is marching on.
John Brown was John the Baptist of the
Christ we are to see;
CHRIST, who of the bondmen shall the Liberator
be;
And soon through all the South the slaves
shall all be free,
For
his soul goes marching on.
John Brown he was a soldier—a
soldier of the LORD;
John Brown he was a martyr—a
martyr to the WORD;
And he made the gallows holy when he perished
by the cord,
For
his soul goes marching on.
The battle that John Brown begun, he looks
from heaven to view,
On the army of the Union with its flag,
red, white and blue;
And the angels shall sing hymns o’er
the deeds we mean to do,
As
we go marching on!
Ye soldiers of JESUS, then strike it while
you may,
The death-blow of Oppression in a better
time and way,
For the dawn of Old John Brown is a-brightening
into day,
And
his soul is marching on.
Glory,
glory, Hallelujah!
Glory,
glory, Hallelujah!
Glory,
glory, Hallelujah!
His
soul is marching on.
There! if the soldiers of Cromwell and of Ireton had any lyric to beat that, we should like to see it. Among its rough and rude rhymes gleams out a fierce fire which we supposed was long since extinct. Verily, old Father Puritan is not dead yet, neither does he sleep; and to judge from what we have heard of the effects of this song among the soldiers, we should say that grim Old John Brown himself, far from perishing, is even now terribly alive. There is something fearful in the inspiration which can inspire songs like this.
* * * * *
‘GALLI VAN T’ is welcome, and will be ‘welcomer’ when he again visits us in another letter like this:
DEAR CONTINENTAL:
I have a friend who is not an artful man, though
he be full of art; and
yesterday evening he told me the following:
’In my early days, when I took views of burly farmers and their bouncing daughters in oil, and painted portraits of their favorite horses for a very moderate honorarium, and in short, was the artist of a small country town—why, then, to tell the truth, I was held to be one of the greatest painters in existence. Since studying abroad, and settling down in New-York—’
‘And getting your name up among the first,’ I added.