Be Joyful! Poem by Benjamin Cutler Clark

Dedicated to the First Colored Regiment of Michigan.

Two years gone by, then we were told,
We do not want your aid;
Our fighting—all we mean to do,
And dying, too, 'twas said.
Now truth maintains her ancient strife
With slavery, loud and long;
In deadly grasp they struggle on,
Till right shall conquer wrong.

Chorus—
Oh! it will be joyful, joyful, joyful;
Oh! it will be joyful, when slavery is no more,
When slavery is no more, when slavery is no more;
Then we'll sing, and offering bring, when slavery is no more.

The wolverenes of Michigan,
The coloured first—though new,
Will boldly to the contest march,
And strike for freedom too.
With Millican, Port Hudson, and
Fort Waggoner in view,
We'll bleed and die for liberty,
As freemen only do.

Chorus—
Oh! that will be joyful, &c.

To make our country what it should,
Has always been of right;
A land of just and equal laws,
And not of force and might:
A place where not a fetter'd slave
Shall ever clank his chain;
But where, without regard to caste,
Freedom and truth shall reign.

Chorus—
Oh! it will be joyful, &c.

What then shall our status be,
And victory shall be won,
When marked, and scarred, with tattered flag,
We from the battle come?
We care not what we then shall be,
For if we're true and brave,
Be what we will, with arms in hand,
We won't be made a slave.

Chorus—
Oh! it will be joyful, &c.

We fight for God and liberty,
For justice, truth, and right,
The freedom of the helpless slave
Against the tyrant's might.
We do not doubt which will succeed
In such a cause as this;
The bullets of a freeman's arm
Were never known to miss.

Chorus—
Oh! it will be joyful, &c.

We've heard from Louisiana,
The Bay State, and from Penn,
And last—not least—here come the sons
Of good old Michigan.
And now three cheers for --,
Who has the soldiers made,
And three loud groans for copperheads
Who will not lend their aid.

Chorus—
Oh! it will be joyful, &c.