The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1862-04-04
"GLORY, HALLELUJAH"
By GAIL HAMILTON,

believe this lyric has a mission. l
should not be surprised if the National
Hymn which the thirteen wise men Of Goth
am went a-fshing for last May, batting their
hooks with golden eagles, and getting many
nibbles. but no fsh-should turn up gradual
! ly in this rousing song. 1t is a wonderful
combination of incongruities, and can scarce
/ ly have been marked out for an ordinary Ca
reer. There is high, religious fervor; a
sense of poetic justice and righteous retribu-
tion ; scorn of grammar, and rhetoric and
rhyme, and reason an incoherence, a bru-
tality, diabolism, a patriotism, and hero
ism which must make it 60 down the popu-
lar throat swee,lv as the grapes of Beulah.-
It has something for everybody. 1t appeals
to all the emotions. 1t sounds the gamut of
humanity. 1t is like the great image which
Nebucha6nezZar saw in his dream. Its head
is Of fine gold, its breast and its arms of sill
yer, its belly and thighs of brass, its legs of
! iron, and It's feet of clay. All this eminent
ly fits 1t for national song, for a national
song is not song of the poets, but song
of a people, and "a people is heroic, and un-
reasonable, and incoherent, and brutal, and
noble. Head of gold and feet of clay.
/ The origin of this song, also, like that of
England'S National Hymn is somewhat fog
gy-or will be if it is let alone a little lon
ger. God save the Queen" is said to have
been a song of plotting Jacobtes, who, in
the early days of the Hanover:an dynasty,
were continually scheming its downfall, and
the restoration of the Stuarts; and the King
who was sung to and prayed for was the ex-
lied Stuart, and not the great George" actu-
ally on the throne. But the song somehow
worked itself into the public taste, and by a
summary, high-handed process was furnished
up and handed over to the loyal Georgians
"as good as new" Was not this "Glory
: Halleujah" sung ty Col Ellsworths Zou-
aves on their march from New York to
Washington, and was it ever sung before !?
1t seems about three hundred years since
then and after such lapse of time one can
not, of course, certainly locate all events in
the exact order of their occurrence, nor have
| any documents at hand to verify my con-
lecture but the March till the battered
gates of Sumter shall appear" savors Of our
honest and patriotic, but ignorant "on to
Richmond" enthusiasm in those early days
That line surely cannot have been written
since Bull Run. and The pet lambs point
directly to the Caliban Iouaves, who, if |
recollect right, christened themselves thus.
Does any one know the author of the song,
or the time of its first appearance?
Let us look at its head Of gold
John Browns body lies moulderns in TIE
grave,
John Browns body lies a mouldering in the
grave.
John Browns body lies a mouldc.ing in the
His soul is marching on
There is slight suggestion of J John Brown
and the little Indian of the fossiliferous ages
that preceded Fort Sumter. but it fades away
before the real grandeur of the idea. The
rude genius which struck out this lyric has
hit the bulls-eye of sublime and stirring
principle. 1t is Bryants' royal thought clad
IN peasant garb.
Truth crushed to earth shall rise again,
The eternal years of God are hers
In homely phrase it recognizes, and seizes,
and promulgateS the Immortality of right,
the indestruclibility of truth and the peo-
pie recognize and receive it with unanimI-
" and enthusiasm which reconcles one for
moment to that most caprlclous Of all apo
thegms, loT Fopuli cor Del, the voice of
the people is the voice of God. On that
summer day set in the orow Of winter, that
June day lost amid December SHOWS, when
John Brown cast his eyes over the pleasant
land which he had come to redeem, as he
rode to the gailows which was to be his tri-
umphal car down the centurles-when he
stood guarded bv twenty-five thousand SOL
diers, and surrounded by an innumerable
throng. himself the noblest Roman of them
all-wileu throughout the South there was
terror, and hatred. and exultation. and
throughout the North admiration and sore
regret-who foresaw-today Who looked
forward through these two memorable years,
and heheld the bristling hosts Of Freedom
pressing down upon Nisginian soil and ring
ing out the Glory. Hallelujah.." on the spot
made forever sacred by that martyrdom? |
know in history no retributon more swift
no justice more complete. Whatever may
be the issue of the war; Virginia, mother oi
Presidents, mother of denominations, the cru
ell and cowardly State that was frantic with
terror before a handful of brave men, and
frantic with lust for their blood, when other
hands than hers had given them into hel
power the traitorous and braggart people
fit offspring Of fathers scummed from the off:
securing of English cities, and mothers
) bought for a hundred pounds of tobacco, has
felt by its own firesides the bitterness oi
death and the sharper bitterness of desola-
- Tnhp ol foI lavr 1y,h
ness 20 dispense justice. Virginia violated
law in her eagerness to dispense injustice
and "the curse shall be on her forever and
ever" Virginia slew John Brown in the in
terests of slavery. and in her despite of free
| dom. A hundred thousand men, imbuet
with John Browns spirit, and armed BY the
| law which he broke, march past his gallows
, tree, and freedom is avenged. He
, wrought ill for noble cause. He confound
ed wrong with right. He would punish
wrong by wrong. But the good that he die
, lives after him, and the evil is inferred with
his bones. The people recognized his single
eye, and his pure heart, and when he went
they felt that virtue had gone out from them
They forget now the illegality of his meas
; ures. and remember only the purity of hi.
motives. His death atoned for his errors
, He was the forerunner Of the great uprising
t His hatred of slavery, his energy, and cour
: sge, and forttude in attacking it, were tht
day star Of this year of our Lord, and so, be
, cause he wrought i'll, his body lies moulder
ing in the grave, and because he purposet
well, his soul is marching on. The idea fol
which he laid down his life, like the ston,
J, which was cut out without hands, is becom
: ing great mountain, and filling the Who'll,
! land. Ii shall Yet smite the image befor,