Wrestling Jacob

musical notation for _Wrestling Jacob_
Midi version of the bar of music.

O wrestlin' Jacob, Jacob, day's a-breakin';
I will not let thee go!
O wrestlin' Jacob, Jacob, day's a-breakin';
He will not let me go!
O, I hold my brudder wid a tremblin' hand
I would not let him go!
I hold my sister wid a tremblin' hand;
I would not let her go!

O, Jacob do hang from a tremblin' limb,
He would not let him go!
O, Jacob do hang from a tremblin' limb;
De Lord will bless my soul.
O wrestlin' Jacob, Jacob," &c.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in Army Life in a Black Regiment (search for "Wrestling Jacob") writes that this was "one of the wildest and most striking of the whole series: there is a mystical effect and a passionate striving throughout the whole. The Scriptural struggle between Jacob and the angel, which is only dimly expressed in the words, seems all uttered in the music. I think it impressed my imagination more powerfully than any other of these songs."

Chapter	Title of Chapter	Chapter's Song	Significance of the song	Author	Title	Comment
14	The Sorrow Songs	Wrestling Jacob	Poem of hopeful strife	Negro Song	"Lay This Body Down"	Souls shall meet some day

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