Amen, Lord Jesus, grant our prayer! So shall Thy saints and martyrs raise A mighty chorus to Thy praise, World without end. Amen. 17 THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC. INE eyes have seen the glory of the coming Mof 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 have 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, TUNE "JOHN BROWN'S BODY." This splendid Battle Hymn of the Republic was written by Julia Ward Howe on the outbreak of the American war, 1860. John Habberton, writing long after it was all over, says: "The old air has a wonderful influence over me. I heard it in Western camp meetings and negro cabins when I was a boy. I saw the 22nd Massachusetts march down Broadway singing the same air during a rush to the front during the early days of the war; I have heard it sung by warrior tongues in nearly every Southern State'; my old brigade sang it softly, but with a swing that was terrible in its earnestness, as they lay behind their stacks of arms just before going into action; I have heard it played over the grave of many a dead comrade; the semi-mutinous -th cavalry became peaceful and patriotic again as their bandmaster played the old air, after having asked permission to try his hand on them; it is the tune that burst forth spontaneously in our barracks on that glorious morning when we learned that the war was over, and it was sung with words adapted to the occasion by some good rebel friends of mine on our first social meeting after the war." 18-CROMWELL'S BATTLE PSALMS. THE most famous of the Battle Songs of the Ironsides was the Sixty-eighth Psalm, which was sung before fighting, and the One Hundred and Seventeenth, which they sang after victory. They had no need for anything to sing after defeat, for they never were defeated. The Sixty-eighth was a famous warrior-psalm long before Cromwell's time. It was the favourite of Charlemagne. Savonarola chanted it as he trod the dolorous way to the stake. It was called by the Huguenots the Song of Battles, and was raised by them in many a desperate fight. The most notable occasion on which it was sung by the Army of the Commonwealth was on the morning of the Battle of Dunbar. Terrible indeed, in the dim and misty morning, must have sounded the voices of the Ironsides singing as they stood ready waiting for the word to charge. This was probably the version that they used: : And let all those that do him hate before his presence flee. As smoke is driv'n, so drive thou them; as fire melts wax away, Before God's face let wicked men so perish and decay. But let the righteous be glad: To God sing, to his name sing praise; That rides on heav'n, by his name The One Hundred and Seventeenth Psalm was sung after the victory was won, and became known thereafter as the Dunbar Psalm. When "the Scotch army, shivered to utter ruin, rushes in tumultuous wreck," "the Lord General made a halt, and sung the one hundred and seventeenth psalm, till our horse could gather for the chase." "Hundred and seventeenth psalm," says Mr. Carlyle, at the foot of the Doon Hill; there we uplift it, to the tune of Bangor, or some still higher score, and roll it strong and great against the sky GIVE : ye praise unto the Lord, Likewise, ye people all, accord For great to us-ward ever are his loving-kindnesses: His truth endures for evermore. Doggerel, no doubt; but who would exchange that rugged verse, sung from the hearts of the victors of Dunbar, while the smoke of their powder was still lying low over the dead, for the most mellifluous verse whose melody charmed the ear of the critic, but never stirred the mighty hearts of heroes? 19-GARIBALDI'S HYMN. THE REV. H. R. Haweis, who probably is the best repository of Garibaldian reminiscences among Englishspeaking men, has been good enough to send me the following notes on the way in which this famous hymn helped the Italian struggle for national unity and independence. Mr. Haweis writes: "Garibaldi's hymn, like so many other tunes and stanzas, was composed by a comparatively obscure per son named Luigi Mercantini, and the music was composed by Alessio Olivieri, of Genoa. I well remember in 1860 being told by an Italian how a friend of his had taken him into a back shop in Venice for fear of the Austrians, and played over to him the then unknown tune, showing him the words to which it was to be sung, and declaring that it would be likely to seize upon the popular heart and ear and become the clarion of patriotic advance and victory. This turned out to be the case. Throughout the length and breadth of Italy – from '59 to '69, at all events Garibaldi's hymn rang out in every café, on every organ, at every social or political gathering, and in every street throughout Italy. It is lively and buoyant. Why it is called a hymn it is difficult to say—it has a bounce and go about it which suggests the irrepressible recklessness, fearlessness, and audacious jollity of youth. It voiced young Italy's aspirations. The revolution was indeed the work chiefly of boys with a few veterans at their backs. The 1000 of Marsala, the remnants of the Italian legion, formed in South America and the defenders of Rome in 1848 -these were the iron-handed, golden-souled veterans and the Garibaldian armies were recruited from the boys of Italy. Garibaldi's hymn suited them down to the ground. It ranks with the Marseillaise as a revolutionary inspirer, but it has a light-hearted joyousness and a rollicking rush and devil-may-care slapdash about it that the gloomier Marseillaise cannot lay claim to. I shall never forget coming down one fresh autumn morning from the Camaldoli hills above Naples and meeting about one hundred Garibaldians in their red shirts and muskets shouldered marching joyously up hill-it was a few days after the battle of Volturnofour trumpeters walked in front, blowing Garibaldi's hymn to their hearts' content, whilst the young lithe guerilleros (I don't think there could have been one over twenty) seemed to step on air. I can recollect their bright sunny faces and eyes glowing with happy enthusiasm even now-lack-a-day, 't is thirty-six years ago!" |