Essay via
The Atlantic on the history of the hymn, including alternate lyrics from the labor movement entitled
Solidarity Forever.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
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 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:
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.
Lyrics to
Solidarity Forever:
When the Union's inspiration
Through the worker's blood shall run,
There can be no power greater
Anywhere beneath the sun,
Yet what force on earth is weaker
Than the feeble strength of one?
But the Union makes us strong.
Chorus:
|: Solidarity forever! :|
Solidarity forever!
For the Union makes us strong.
2. Is there aught we hold in common
With the greedy parasite
Who would lash us into serfdom
And would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left for us
But to organize and fight?
For the Union makes us strong.
Chorus:
3. It is we who plowed the prairies;
Built the cities where they trade,
Dug the mines and built the workshops;
Endless miles of railroad laid.
Now we stand, outcast and starving,
'Mid the wonders we have made;
But the Union makes us strong.
Chorus:
4. All the world that's owned by idle drones,
Is ours and ours alone.
We have laid the wide foundations;
Built it skywards, stone by stone.
It is ours, and not to slave in,
But to master and to own,
While the Union makes us strong.
Chorus:
5. They have taken untold millions
That they never toiled to earn.
But without our brain and muscle
Not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power;
Gain our freedom, when we learn
That the Union makes us strong.
Chorus:
6. In our hands is placed a pot
Greater than their hoarded gold;
Greater than the might of armies,
Magnified a thousand fold.
We can bring to birth the new world
From the ashes of the old,
For the Union makes us strong.
Chorus:
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