{
 "id": "james-weldon-johnson/the-judgment-day",
 "title": "The Judgment Day",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "James Weldon Johnson",
 "poet_slug": "james-weldon-johnson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse",
 "book_slug": "gods-trombones",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1927,
  "venue": "God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse (1927)",
  "note": "The volume's own acknowledgement page thanks The Century Magazine for permission to reprint this poem, so a periodical printing precedes the book; that issue has not been located here, and the year given is the volume's. Placed from a second scan of the book (godstrombonessev00john, a Viking reprint whose front matter runs to the fifteenth printing of February 1955), which prints the poem whole; the first scan on disk, godstrombonessev00johnso, is missing pages of it.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/godstrombonessev00johnso",
   "https://archive.org/details/godstrombonessev00john"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/james-weldon-johnson_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/How_the_National_Association_for_the_Adv/AAs-AQAAMAAJ",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17884",
   "https://archive.org/details/fiftyyearsother00johnrich",
   "https://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/johnson/johnson.html",
   "https://archive.org/details/godstrombonessev00johnso"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 97,
  "n_stanzas": 13,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "In that great day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "People, in that great day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God’s a-going to rain down fire.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God’s a-going to sit in the middle of the air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To judge the quick and the dead.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Early one of these mornings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God’s a-going to call for Gabriel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That tall, bright angel, Gabriel;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And God’s a-going to say to him: Gabriel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Blow your silver trumpet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wake the living nations.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And Gabriel’s going to ask him: Lord,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How loud must I blow it?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And God’s a-going to tell him: Gabriel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Blow it calm and easy.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then putting one foot on the mountain top,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the other in the middle of the sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gabriel’s going to stand and blow his horn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To wake the living nations.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then God’s a-going to say to him: Gabriel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Once more blow your silver trumpet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wake the nations underground.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And Gabriel’s going to ask him: Lord",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How loud must I blow it?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And God’s a-going to tell him: Gabriel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like seven peals of thunder.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then the tall, bright angel, Gabriel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will put one foot on the battlements of heaven",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the other on the steps of hell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And blow that silver trumpet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till he shakes old hell’s foundations.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And I feel Old Earth a-shuddering⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I see the graves a-bursting⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I hear a sound,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A blood-chilling sound.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What sound is that I hear?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s the clicking together of the dry bones,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bone to bone⁠—the dry bones.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I see coming out of the bursting graves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And marching up from the valley of death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The army of the dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the living and the dead in the twinkling of an eye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are caught up in the middle of the air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before God’s judgment bar.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh-o-oh, sinner,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where will you stand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that great day when God’s a-going to rain down fire?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, you gambling man⁠—where will you stand?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You whore-mongering man⁠—where will you stand?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Liars and backsliders⁠—where will you stand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that great day when God’s a-going to rain down fire?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And God will divide the sheep from the goats,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The one on the right, the other on the left.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to them on the right God’s a-going to say:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Enter into my kingdom.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And those who’ve come through great tribulations,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They will enter in⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clothed in spotless white,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With starry crowns upon their heads,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And silver slippers on their feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And harps within their hands;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And two by two they’ll walk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up and down the golden street,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Feasting on the milk and honey",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Singing new songs of Zion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chattering with the angels",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All around the Great White Throne.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And to them on the left God’s a-going to say:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Depart from me into everlasting darkness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down into the bottomless pit.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the wicked like lumps of lead will start to fall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Headlong for seven days and nights they’ll fall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Plumb into the big, black, red-hot mouth of hell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Belching out fire and brimstone.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And their cries like howling, yelping dogs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will go up with the fire and smoke from hell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But God will stop his ears.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Too late, sinner! Too late!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Goodbye, sinner! Goodbye!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In hell, sinner! In hell!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beyond the reach of the love of God.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And I hear a voice, crying, crying:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Time shall be no more!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Time shall be no more!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Time shall be no more!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the sun will go out like a candle in the wind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The moon will turn to dripping blood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The stars will fall like cinders,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the sea will burn like tar;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the earth shall melt away and be dissolved,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the sky will roll up like a scroll.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a wave of his hand God will blot out time,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And start the wheel of eternity.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sinner, oh, sinner,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where will you stand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that great day when God’s a-going to rain down fire?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}