Be jubilant, my feet! and other ruminations

Here it is the middle of November already and I haven't produced a single blogpost all month. I am losing it, people.

Let me remedy that right now. I woke up this morning with the words to Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn Of The Republic" on my mind. The mind is a peculiar, unpredictable thing. Who can know it?

Anyway, here are the lyrics, with a few observations afterward:

1. 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.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

2. 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.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

3. 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.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

4. 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.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on.

5. 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.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on.

6. He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.

(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Our God is marching on!

(end of song)

So it turns out that Julia Ward Howe wrote six verses in all, although the sixth verse is neve heard nowadays. I cannot resist saying that on the seventh verse, Julia rested.

I don't know why, but during the last quarter of the 20th century, many public performances of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" substituted the lyric "As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free" in the fifth verse in place of Howe's original lyric "let us die to make men free." In the 21st century, the original lyric is being sung more and more. I could be wrong, but my guess is that the destruction of the World Trade Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001, had a lot to do with reverting to the original lyric.

It has always fascinated me that Julia wrote "Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!" in verse four, the opposite of what a more prosaic writer might have exhorted (that one's soul should be jubilant and one's feet should be swift). Julia Ward Howe was anything but prosaid.

It saddens me that people of the 19th-century seem to have been far more familiar with Scripture, if Julia Ward Howe is any example, than most people of the 20th and 21st centuries. References to passages in the Bible are numerous in the Battle Hymn. It is another sign of cultural decline.

I thought perhaps the song was on my mind because we might be near the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in 1863, but I looked it up and that battle occurred in July. Then I thought of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the battlefield later that year, the address which ends with "that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birh of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." I looked up that date too. It was November 19th. Three days from today.

Near the beginning of this post I said that the mind is a peculiar, unpredictable thing.

I will end with a Scripture reference: We are fearfully and wonderfully made.