Classic Poem

One moment on the scaffold, and he left it Holy Ground!
Three hundred thousand heroes now lie guarding it around,
And reverent hearts are pilgrim still to many a sacred mound,—
And the Right goes marching on!

God had counted up the slave-graves, and heard the black man's moan,
Till at last his leaping thunder shook the awful Judgment-Throne,—
‘For each lash a cannon-crash! For each cry a battle-groan!’—
And the Right goes marching on.

The Hands wherein the sparrow falls, that beckon to the star,
Are Hands that harness unseen dooms to Wrong's triumphal car,
And the steeds untiring draw the nations trembling to the Bar,—
And the Right goes marching on!

Then, if perchance a nation's Soul from out her shame shall rise,
And light of Justice kindle fresh within her chastened eyes,
The God who dooms shall save her by the pain that purifies,—
And the Right goes marching on!

Lo, the flowers are all a-blossom, and the grasses are a-wave
Where the bodies of our hero dead are sleeping in the grave:
So shall beauty crown salvation through the Hands so strong to save,—
And the Right goes marching on!