Michael Row the Boat Ashore

Michael, row the boat ashore, Alleluia,

 

Michael, row the boat ashore, hallelujah,

 

Michael’s boat is a music boat, hallelujah,

 

Sister help to trim the sails, hallelujah

 

Jordan’s river is deep and wide hallelujah,

Milk and honey on the other side, hallelujah.

 

Jordan’s river is chilly and cold, hallelujah,

Kills the body, but not the soul, hallelujah.

 

The trumpets sound the Jubilee, hallelujah

Trumpets sound for you and me, hallelujah

 

 

 

 

*Sung by former slaves whose owners had abandoned St. Helena Island before the Union navy arrived to

enforce a blockade. Charles Pickard Ware, an abolitionist and Harvard graduate who had come to supervise

the plantations on St. Helena Island from 1862 to 1865, wrote the song down in music notation as he heard the

freedmen sing it – www.wikipedia.org