Poem: We Are John Brown's Body

We are John Brown’s Body
His firm hand guides our strikes
We grip his sabers and stop production
We slice slaveholders hands and pour blood from mountaintops
We refuse to let go
Until death’s grip drops us from gallows and we dangle, dead…

We are John Brown’s Body
His fiery eyes flow from every picket-line
His fury blows from our every bullhorn
Pouring out like screaming fire
And pounding the oppressor back
Making cowardly cannibals fear, and fall...

We are John Brown’s Body,
When State Militia Bullets fly!

We are John Brown’s Body,
Fuming at injustice, and swearing at funerals!

We are John Brown’s Body,
Stopping Bailiffs at the door!

We are John Brown’s Body,
bleeding in barnyards and gripping rifle butts!

We are John Brown’s Body,
On the lips of the future!

In the songs of our children…

In the forgotten past that never fades away!

Never dies,

Burns on, the eternal fire of revolution!

-Caleb T. Maupin