“Aint No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down.”

Shadows spilled across the potters field like black coffee,

As three priests dressed like clowns practiced their mime.

The sinking sun appeared to weep as it kissed the ground

and the white crows from the vicars parish fell dead from flight.

Macabre death whispered sweet its melancholic tune

as the promise of not another day crept cold into the night.

Silver stars formed omens in the now ink black sky,

as one white crow was resurrected, yet forbade to fly.

To and fro from stone to stone, it walked cawing out at the unknown graves.

Soon the grounds began to rumble and the heavens did shake,

as the once joking priest now fell terrified upon their face.

One by one, each tomb, each grave now opened with the calling of a name.

Bodies once held sound in the cold dank darkness of hallowed ground,

now rose skyward like papal smoke, freed at last, no longer in death bound.

Called forth in transformation by the Masters proclamation,

called forth into a new day by their faith through salvation.

Summoned now in rapture were they, by the most high.

Called now home to an eternal glory in the sweet by and by.

J. Allen Wilson © Five 2006

No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down

Original Artist unknown, but sang by

Brother Claude Ely In the early 1900s Campgound revivals

Go down yonder Gabriel
put your foot on the land and sea
now blow your trumpet boy until you hear from me

There ain't no grave gonna hold my body down
there ain't no grave gonna hold my body down
when you hear that trumpet sound
gonna get up out of the ground
there ain't no grave gonna hold my body down

Looked over Jordan, what did I see?
A band of angels coming after me

There ain't no grave gonna hold my body down
there ain't no grave gonna hold my body down

when you hear that trumpet sound
gonna get up out of the ground
there ain't no grave gonna hold my body down

Meet me Jesus meet me
Meet me in the middle of the air
if these wings fail me, meet me with another pair

There ain't no grave gonna hold my body down
there ain't no grave gonna hold my body down
when you hear that trumpet sound
gonna get up out of the ground
there ain't no grave gonna hold my body down