There's a Good Time Coming was a popular poem written by Charles Mackay and set to music by Henry Russell and was one of that composer of popular music's best-known works in the middle of the nineteenth century.
There's a good time coming, boys, a good time coming:
We may not live to see the day, but Earth shall glisten in the ray of the good time coming:
Cannonballs may aid the truth, But thought's a weapon stronger:
We'll win our battle with its aid;- Wait a little longer.
Independent testimony quoted by John Dodds indicates that the song was popular with new immigrants to the United States; it was recorded as being sung on the emigrant ships as they approached New York Harbour.
The pen shall supersede the sword,
And right not might, shall be the lord
In the good time coming;
Worth, not truth, shall rule mankind,
And be acknowledged stronger...
Famous quotes containing the words time and/or coming:
“O native country, repossessed by thee!
For, rather than I’ll to the West return,
I’ll beg of thee first here to have mine urn.
Weak I am grown, and must in short time fall;
Give thou my sacred relics burial.”
—Robert Herrick (1591–1674)
“To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a heartbreaking task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harm’s way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)