He knew that undeceiving fate Would shame us whom he served unsought; He knew that we must all be taught We gave a glamor to the task That he encountered and saw through, And little did we ever do. And what appears if we review The season when we railed and chaffed? That we were learning while we laughed. The face that in our vision feels Nor could it ever have been old. For he, to whom we had applied As he was ancient at his birth: The saddest among kings of earth, Bowed with a galling crown, this man The love, the grandeur, and the fame, The calm, the smoldering, and the flame With him they are forever flown For we were not as other men: But we are coming down again, But flourish in our perigee And have one Titan at a time. Edwin Arlington Robinson [1869 ON THE LIFE-MASK OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN THIS bronze doth keep the very form and mold Of our great martyr's face. Yes, this is he: That brow all wisdom, all benignity; That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks that hold For storms to beat on; the lone agony With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken. Or armed strength-his pure and mighty heart. Richard Watson Gilder [1844-1909] ABRAHAM LINCOLN [Written by the editor of London Punch, as that journal's apology and atonement] You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier, You, who, with mocking pencil, wont to trace, His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair, His lack of all we prize as debonair, Of power or will to shine, of art to please; You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh, Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, My shallow judgment I had learned to rue, How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more true, How humble, yet how hopeful, he could be; Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame. He went about his work-such work as few Ever had laid on head and heart and hand As one who knows, where there's a task to do, Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow, If but that will we can arrive to know, Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill. So he went forth to battle, on the side That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's, As in his peasant boyhood he had plied His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting mights, The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil, The iron bark that turns the lumberer's ax, The ambushed Indian, and the prowling bear,Such were the needs that helped his youth to train: Rough culture-but such trees large fruit may bear, If but their stocks be of right girth and grain. So he grew up, a destined work to do, And lived to do it: four long-suffering years' The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise, And took both with the same unwavering mood; Till, as he came on light, from darkling days, And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood, A felon hand, between the goal and him, Reached from behind his back, a trigger pressedAnd those perplexed and patient eyes were dim, Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest. The words of mercy were upon his lips, Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen, The Old World and the New, from sea to sea, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 3411 A deed accursed! Strokes have been struck before But thy foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly out, Vile hand, that brandest murder on a strife, HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW [1807-1882] Nec turpem senectam Degere, nec cithara carentem.-Hor. i. 31 "NOT to be tuneless in old age!" Ah! surely blest his pilgrimage, Who, in his Winter's snow, Still sings with note as sweet and clear As in the morning of the year When the first violets blow. Blest!-but more blest, whom Summer's heat, Have taught no feverish lure; Lie calm, O white and laureate head! Thy voice shall speak to old and young Austin Dobson [1840 |