Chapter V: Introduction: The Poetic Spirit of Lincoln (4)

At the time of the appearance of the procession at the City Hall at least twenty thousand persons were assembled in the immediate neighborhood. While awaiting the arrival of the procession a number of German singing bands were marched into the open space before the Hall, and arranged on either side of the entrance, preparatory to the singing of a requiem to the dead. The procession entered the Park at about half-past eleven o'clock, and the hearse stopped before the entrance to the Hall. Here the coffin was immediately taken from the hearse and carried up the stairs to the catafalque which had been prepared for its reception, while the singing societies rendered two very appropriate dirges.

The interior of the City Hall had been decorated with much taste. Across the dome a black curtain was drawn, and the rays of light thus conducted fell subdued upon the sad but imposing spectacle.

Henry T. Tuckerman, a member of the Committee on Resolutions, wrote the following ode for the funeral obsequies, on the 25th day of April, 1865, at New York City. The Athenaeum Club participated, bearing an appropriate banner, the members wearing distinctive badges of mourning and under the leadership of their Vice-President, Henry E. Pierpont; the President, William T. Blodgett, being at that time absent acting as Chairman of the Citizens Committee:

ODE

Shroud the banner! rear the cross!
Consecrate a nation's loss;
Gaze on that majestic sleep;
Stand beside the bier to weep;
Lay the gentle son of toil
Proudly in his native soil;
Crowned with honor, to his rest
Bear the prophet of the West.

How cold the brow that yet doth wear
The impress of a nation's care;
How still the heart, whose every beat
Glowed with compassion's sacred heat;
Rigid the lips, whose patient smile
Duty's stern task would oft beguile;
Blood-quenched the pensive eye's soft light;
Nerveless the hand so loth to smite;
So meek in rule, it leads, though dead,
The people as in life it led.

O let his wise and guileless sway
Win every recreant today,
And sorrow's vast and holy wave
Blend all our hearts around his grave!
Let the faithful bondmen's tears,
Let the traitor's craven fears,
And the people's grief and pride,
Plead against the parricide!
Let us throng to pledge and pray
O'er the patriot martyr's clay;
Then, with solemn faith in right,
That made him victor in the fight,
Cling to the path he fearless trod,
Still radiant with the smile of God.

Shroud the banner! rear the cross!
Consecrate a nation's loss;
Gaze on that majestic sleep;
Stand beside the bier to weep;
Lay the gentle son of toil
Proudly in his native soil;
Crowned with honor, to his rest
Bear the prophet of the West.

Lucy Larcom was born in Beverly, Mass., in 1826. At the age of seven years she wrote stories and poems. She spent three years in school, then worked in the cotton mills. Some of her writings attracted the attention of Whittier, from whom she received encouragement. At the age of twenty she went to Illinois and there taught school for some time, and for three years studied in Monticello Female Seminary. She returned to Massachusetts and during the war wrote many patriotic poems.

TOLLING

Tolling, tolling, tolling!
All the bells of the land!
Lo, the patriot martyr
Taketh his journey grand!
Travels into the ages,
Bearing a hope how dear!
Into life's unknown vistas,
Liberty's great pioneer.

Tolling, tolling, tolling!
See, they come as a cloud,
Hearts of a mighty people,
Bearing his pall and shroud;
Lifting up, like a banner,
Signals of loss and woe;
Wonder of breathless nations,
Moveth the solemn show.

Tolling, tolling, tolling!
Was it, O man beloved,
Was it thy funeral only
Over the land that moved?

The remains of President Lincoln lay in state in the City Hall, New York, from noon April 24 to noon April 25, 1865. Visitors were admitted to view the remains, passing through the Hall two abreast. Singing societies sang dirges in the rotunda the night through.

Richard Storrs Willis was born in Boston, Massachusetts, February 10, 1819, was graduated at Yale in 1841, and adopted literature as his profession. He has published musical and other poems; has edited the _New York Musical World_ and _Once a Week_, and contributed also to current literature. He wrote the following:

REQUIEM OF LINCOLN

Now wake the requiem's solemn moan,
For him whose patriot task is done!
A nation's heart stands still today
With horror, o'er his martyred clay!

O, God of Peace, repress the ire,
Which fills our souls with vengeful fire!
Vengeance is Thine--and sovereign might,
Alone, can such a crime requite!

Farewell, thou good and guileless heart!
The manliest tears for thee must start!
E'en those at times who blamed thee here,
Now deeply sorrow o'er thy bier.

O, Jesus, grant him sweet repose,
Who, like Thee, seemed to love his foes!
Those foes, like Thine, their wrath to spend,
Have slain their best, their firmest friend.

The funeral train bearing the remains of President Lincoln reached Buffalo, New York, on Thursday morning, the 27th of April. The body was taken from the funeral car and borne by soldiers up to St. James' Hall, where it was placed under a crape canopy, extending from the ceiling to the floor. The Buffalo St. Cecilia Society sang with deep pathos the dirge "Rest, Spirit, Rest," the society then placed an elegantly formed harp, made of choice white flowers, at the head of the coffin, as a tribute from them to the honored dead. The public were admitted to view the remains, and the following day the remains reached Cleveland, Ohio.

James Nicoll Johnston was born in Ardee, County Donegal, Ireland. When two years of age the family moved to Cashelmore, Sheephaven Bay, County Donegal. In 1847 they moved to America. He was then between fifteen and sixteen years of age. In 1848 they settled at Buffalo, New York, which has been his home until the present time.

He has published two editions of _Donegal Memories_, also two editions of _Donegal Memories and Other Poems_, and a volume of Buffalo verse collected by him under the title of _Poets and Poetry of Buffalo_. He assisted in collections of Buffalo local literature, also devoted much time to the production of publications of a philanthropic nature.

REQUIEM

Bear him to his Western home,
Whence he came four years ago;
Not beneath some Eastern dome,
But where Freedom's airs may come,
Where the prairie grasses grow,
To the friends who loved him so,

Take him to his quiet rest;
Toll the bell and fire the gun;
He who served his Country best,
He whom millions loved and bless'd,
Now has fame immortal won;
Rack of brain and heart is done.

Shed thy tears, O April rain,
O'er the tomb wherein he sleeps!
Wash away the bloody stain!
Drape the skies in grief, O rain!
Lo! a nation with thee weeps,
Grieving o'er her martyred slain.

To the people whence he came,
Bear him gently back again,
Greater his than victor's fame:
His is now a sainted name;
Never ruler had such gain--
Never people had such pain.

Photograph taken in 1863 by Brady]

Oliver Wendell Holmes, born in Cambridge, Mass., August 29, 1809. To him belongs the credit of saving the frigate Constitution from destruction, by a poem--_Aye, Tear the Battered Ensign Down_. He died August 7, 1894.

SERVICES IN MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

(_City of Boston, June 1, 1865_)

O Thou of soul and sense and breath,
The ever-present Giver,
Unto Thy mighty angel, death,
All flesh Thou didst deliver;
What most we cherish, we resign,
For life and death alike are Thine,
Who reignest Lord forever!

Our hearts lie buried in the dust
With him, so true and tender,
The patriot's stay, the people's trust,
The shield of the offender;
Yet every murmuring voice is still,
As, bowing to Thy sovereign will,
Our best loved we surrender.

Dear Lord, with pitying eye behold
This martyr generation,
Which Thou, through trials manifold,
Art showing Thy salvation!
O let the blood by murder spilt
Wash out Thy stricken children's guilt,
And sanctify our Nation!

Be Thou Thy orphaned Israel's friend,
Forsake Thy people never,
In one our broken many blend,
That none again may sever!
Hear us, O Father, while we raise
With trembling lips our song of praise,
And bless Thy name forever!

Photographed by F. W. Ingmire on the day of the funeral, with the
members of the National Committee appointed to accompany the
remains to Springfield, Illinois.

Members on the pavement: Left (1) Hon. Schuyler Colfax, Speaker
of the House; (2) Hon. R. C. Schenck, Ohio; (3) Hon. Lyman
Trumbull, Illinois; (4) Hon. Charles E. Phelps, Maryland; (5)
Hon. W. H. Wallace, Idaho; (6) Hon. Joseph Baily, Pennsylvania;
(7) Hon. James K. Morehead, Pennsylvania; (8) Hon. Sidney Clarke,
Kansas; (9) Hon. Samuel Hooper, Massachusetts; (10) Hon. E. B.
Washburn, Illinois; (11) Hon. Thomas W. Ferry, Michigan; (12)
Hon. Thomas B. Shannon, California; (13) S. G. Ordway,
Sergeant-at-Arms of the House.

Members in the yard: Left (1) Hon. Isaac N. Arnold, Illinois; (2)
Hon. John B. Henderson, Missouri; (3) Hen. Richard Yates,
Illinois; (4) Hon. James W. Nye, Nevada; (5) Hon. Henry S. Lane,
Indiana; (6) Hon. George H. Williams, Oregon; (7) Hon. George T.
Brown, Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate; (8) Hon. William A.
Newell, New Jersey.]

William Allen, D.D., born 1784, died 1868. Graduated at Harvard, 1802. President Dartmouth College, 1816-1819, Bowdoin College, 1820-1839. He was the father of American Biography, published various volumes of poems; as a philologist, he contributed many thousands of words and definitions to Webster and Worcester's dictionaries. He was leader of the American delegation to the National Peace Congress at Versailles in 1849.

SPRINGFIELD'S WELCOME TO LINCOLN

Lincoln! thy country's father, hail!
We bid thee welcome, but bewail;
Welcome unto thy chosen home--
Triumphant, glorious, dost thou come.

Before the enemy struck the blow
That laid thee in a moment low,
God gave thy wish: It was to see
Our Union safe, our country free.

A country where the gospel truth
Shall reach the hearts of age and youth,
And move unchained, in majesty,
A model land of liberty!

When Jacob's bones, from Egypt borne,
Regained their home, the people mourn;
Great mourning then at Ephron's cave,
Both Abraham's and Isaac's grave.

Far greater is the mourning now;
For our land one emblem wide of woe;
And where thy coffin car appears
Do not the people throng in tears?

Thy triumph of a thousand miles,
Like eastern conqueror with his spoils--
A million hearts thy captives led,
All weeping for their chieftain dead.

Thy chariot, moved with eagle speed
Without the aid of prancing steed,
Has brought thee to that destined tomb;
Springfield, thy home, will give thee room.

Lincoln, the martyr, welcome home!
What lessons blossom on thy tomb!
In God's pure truth and law delight;
With firm, unwavering soul do right.

Be condescending, kind and just;
In God's wise counsels put thy trust;
Let no proud soul e'er dare rebel,
Moved by vile passions sprung from hell.

Come, sleep with us in sweet repose,
Till we, as Christ from death arose,
Still in His glorious image rise
To dwell with him beyond the skies.

The body of the President lay in state in the Capitol, Springfield, Illinois--which was very richly draped--from May 3 to May 4, when it was removed to Oak Ridge Cemetery.

Lucy Hamilton Hooper, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 20, 1835. In conjunction with Charles G. Leland she edited _Our Daily Fare_, the daily chronicle of the Philadelphia Sanitary Fair in 1864. She was assistant editor of _Lippincott's Magazine_ from its foundation until she went to Europe in 1870. In 1874 she settled in Paris and since has been correspondent for various journals in this country. She has published _Poems, with Translations from the German_ (Philadelphia, 1864), another volume of _Poems_ (1871); a translation of _Le Nabob_, by Alphonse Daudet (Boston, 1879); and _Under the Tricolor_, a novel (Philadelphia, 1880). She died August 31, 1893.

LINCOLN

There is a shadow on the sunny air,
There is a darkness o'er the April day,
We bow our heads beneath this awful cloud
So sudden come, and not to pass away.

O the wild grief that sweeps across our land
From frozen Maine to Californian shore!
A people's tears, an orphaned nation's wail,
For him the good, the great, who is no more.

The noblest brain that ever toiled for man,
The kindest heart that ever thrilled a breast,
The lofty soul unstained by soil of earth,
Sent by a traitor to a martyr's rest.

And his last act (O gentle, kindly heart!)
The noble prompting of unselfish grace.
He would not disappoint the waiting crowd
Who came to gaze upon his honored face.

O God, thy ways are just, and yet we find
This dispensation hard to understand.
Why must our Prophet's weary feet be stay'd
Upon the borders of the Promised Land?

He bore the heat, the burden of the day,
The golden eventide he shall not see;
He shall not see the old flag wave again
Over a land united, saved, and free.

He loved his people, and he ever lent
To all our griefs a sympathizing ear;
Now for the first time in these four sad years
The stricken nation wails--he does not hear.

O never wept a land a nobler Chief!
Kind heart, strong hand, true soul--yet, while we weep
Let us remember, e'en amid our tears,
'Tis God who gives to his beloved sleep.

So sleeps he now, the chosen man of God,
No more shall care or sorrow wring his breast;
The weary one and heavy laden, lies
Hushed by the voice of God to endless rest.

We need no solemn knell, no tolling bells,
No chanted dirge, no vain words sadly said.
The saddest knell that ever stirred the air
Rang in those words, "Our President is dead!"

On the day of Lincoln's funeral]

The remains of President Lincoln were deposited in this receiving vault of Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois, on the 4th of May, 1865, where they remained until December 21, 1865, when they were removed to a temporary vault near the site of the public one. On September 19, 1871, the remains were removed to the monument which had been erected and which stands on the top of the hill in that cemetery back of the public vault. The remains of Mrs. Lincoln, Willie and Thomas (Tad), are also resting there.

LET THE PRESIDENT SLEEP

_By James M. Stewart_

Let the President sleep! all his duty is done,
He has lived for our glory, the triumph is won;
At the close of the fight, like a warrior brave,
He retires from the field to the rest of the grave.
Hush the roll of the drum, hush the cannon's loud roar,
He will guide us to peace through the battle no more;
But new freedom shall dawn from the place of his rest,
Where the star has gone down in the beautiful West.
Tread lightly, breathe softly, and gratefully bring
To the sod that enfolds him the first flowers of spring;
They will tenderly treasure the tears that we weep
O'er the grave of our chief--let the President sleep.

Let the President sleep--tears will hallow the ground,
Where we raise o'er his ashes the sheltering mound,
And his spirit will sometimes return from above,
There to mingle with ours in ineffable love.
Peace to thee, noble dead, thou hast battled for right,
And hast won high reward from the Father of Light;
Peace to thee, martyr-hero, and sweet be thy rest,
Where the sunlight fades out in the beautiful West.
Tread lightly, breathe softly, and gratefully bring
To the sod that enfolds him the first flowers of spring;
They will tenderly treasure the tears that we weep
O'er the grave of our chief--let the President sleep!

Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois, in which the body
of Lincoln was placed, May 4, 1865]

James Mackay, born in New York, April 8, 1872. Author of _The Economy of Happiness_, _The Politics of Utility_, and of various lectures on Scientific Ethics, etc.

THE CENOTAPH OF LINCOLN

And so they buried Lincoln? Strange and vain
Has any creature thought of Lincoln hid
In any vault 'neath any coffin lid,
In all the years since that wild spring of pain?
'Tis false--he never in the grave hath lain.
You could not bury him although you slid
Upon his clay the Cheops Pyramid,
Or heaped it with the Rocky Mountain chain.
They slew themselves;--they but set Lincoln free.
In all the earth his great heart beats as strong,
Shall beat while pulses throb to chivalry,
And burn with hate of tyranny and wrong.
Whoever will may find him, anywhere
Save in the tomb. Not there--he is not there.

Springfield, Illinois, Larken G. Mead, Architect]

A movement was started shortly after the burial of Lincoln to raise funds sufficient to build a monument over his grave. Contributions were made by various States and societies, and about sixty thousand Sunday-school scholars contributed the sum of eighteen thousand dollars. Ground was broken on the 9th of September, 1869, and the monument was dedicated on the 15th of October, 1874, at a total cost of two hundred and thirty thousand dollars.

James Judson Lord, born at Berwick, Maine, in 1821. He had the advantage of an excellent early education followed by years of research. During his preparatory studies at Cambridge he met Longfellow, who loaned him books from his own library. For a time he studied art under prominent masters, but his health failing, after a time of forced leisure he went into the mercantile business in Boston, which vocation he afterward followed. In 1851 he went to Illinois; finally, after his marriage, settling in Springfield. There he knew Mr. Lincoln, with whom he was on terms of closest friendship.

The poem submitted by Mr. Lord was selected for reading at the dedication of the National Lincoln Monument in a competition which brought contributions from many leading poets.

He was the author of several dramas, and from time to time contributed poems to leading magazines and newspapers of the country. He died January 3, 1905.

DEDICATION POEM

_Read by Richard Edwards, LL.D., President Illinois
State Normal University at Bloomington, Illinois_

We build not here a temple or a shrine,
Nor hero-fane to demigods divine;
Nor to the clouds a superstructure rear
For man's ambition or for servile fear.
Not to the Dust, but to the Deeds alone
A grateful people raise th' historic stone;
For where a patriot lived, or hero fell,
The daisied turf would mark the spot as well.

What though the Pyramids, with apex high,
Like Alpine peaks cleave Egypt's rainless sky,
And cast grim shadows o'er a desert land
Forever blighted by oppression's hand?
No patriot zeal their deep foundations laid--
No freeman's hand their darken'd chambers made--
No public weal inspired the heart with love,
To see their summits towering high above.
The ruling Pharaoh, proud and gory-stained,
With vain ambitions never yet attained;--
With brow enclouded as his marble throne,
And heart unyielding as the building stone;--
Sought with the scourge to make mankind his slaves,
And heaven's free sunlight darker than their graves.
His but to will, and theirs to yield and feel,
Like vermin'd dust beneath his iron heel;--
Denies all mercy, and all right offends,
Till on his head th' avenging Plague descends.

Historic justice bids the nations know
That through each land of slaves a Nile of blood
shall flow:
And Vendome Columns, on a people thrust,
Are, by the people, level'd with the dust.

Nor stone, nor bronze, can fit memorials yield
For deeds of valor on the bloody field,
'Neath war's dark clouds the sturdy volunteer,
By freedom taught his country to revere,
Bids home and friends a hasty, sad adieu,
And treads where dangers all his steps pursue;
Finds cold and famine on his dauntless way,
And with mute patience brooks the long delay,
Or hears the trumpet, or the thrilling drum
Peal the long roll that calls: "They come! they come!"
Then to the front with battling hosts he flies,
And lives to triumph, or for freedom dies.
Thund'ring amain along the rocky strand,
The Ocean claims her honors with the Land.
Loud on the gale she chimes the wild refrain,
Or with low murmur wails her heroes slain!
In gory hulks, with splinter'd mast and spar,
Rocks on her stormy breast the valiant Tar:--
Lash'd to the mast he gives the high command,
Or midst the fight, sinks with the _Cumberland_.

Beloved banner of the azure sky,
Thy rightful home where'er thy eagles fly;
On thy blue field the stars of heav'n descend,
And to our day a purer luster lend.
O, Righteous God! who guard'st the right alway,
And bade Thy peace to come, "and come to stay":
And while war's deluge fill'd the land with blood,
With bow of promise arch'd the crimson flood,--
From fratricidal strife our banner screen,
And let it float henceforth in skies serene.

Yet cunning art shall here her triumphs bring,
And laurel'd bards their choicest anthems sing.
Here, honor'd age shall bare its wintery brow,
And youth to freedom make a Spartan vow.
Here, ripened manhood from its walks profound,
Shall come and halt, as if on hallow'd ground.

Here shall the urn with fragrant wreaths be drest,
By tender hands the flow'ry tributes prest;
And wending westward, from oppressions far,
Shall pilgrims come, led by our freedom-star;
While bending lowly, as o'er friendly pall,
The silent tear from ebon cheeks shall fall.

Sterile and vain the tributes which we pay--
It is the Past that consecrates today
The spot where rests one of the noble few
Who saw the right, and dared the right to do.
True to himself and to his fellow men,
With patient hand he moved the potent pen,
Whose inky stream did, like the Red Sea's flow,
Such bondage break and such a host o'erthrow!
The simple parchment on its fleeting page
Bespeaks the import of the better age,--
When man, for man, no more shall forge the chain,
Nor armies tread the shore, nor navies plow the main.
Then shall this boon to human freedom given
Be fitly deem'd a sacred gift of heaven;--
Though of the earth, it is no less divine,--
Founded on truth it will forever shine,
Reflecting rays from heaven's unchanging plan--
The law of right and brotherhood of man.

Edna Dean Proctor, born in Henniker, New Hampshire, October 10, 1838. She received her early education in Concord and subsequently removed to Brooklyn, New York. She contributed largely to magazine literature and has traveled extensively abroad. Of all her poems _By the Shenandoah_ is probably the most popular.

THE GRAVE OF LINCOLN

Now must the storied Potomac
Laurels forever divide;
Now to the Sangamon fameless
Give of its century's pride.
Sangamon, stream of the prairies,
Placidly westward that flows,
Far in whose city of silence
Calm he has sought his repose.
Over our Washington's river
Sunrise beams rosy and fair;
Sunset on Sangamon fairer,--
Father and martyr lies there.

Break into blossom, O prairie!
Snowy and golden and red;
Peers of the Palestine lilies
Heap for your Glorious Dead!
Roses as fair as of Sharon,
Branches as stately as palm,
Odors as rich as the spices--
Cassia and aloes and balm--
Mary the loved and Salome,
All with a gracious accord,
Ere the first glow of the morning
Brought to the tomb of the Lord.

Not for thy sheaves nor savannas
Crown we thee, proud Illinois!
Here in his grave is thy grandeur;
Born of his sorrow thy joy.
Only the tomb by Mount Zion,
Hewn for the Lord, do we hold
Dearer than his in thy prairies,
Girdled with harvests of gold!
Still for the world through the ages
Wreathing with glory his brow,
He shall be Liberty's Saviour;
Freedom's Jerusalem thou!

In Lincoln Park, Washington, D. C. Thomas Ball, sculptor.]

The first contribution of five dollars for the statue in Lincoln Park, Washington, D. C., was made by a colored woman named Charlotte Scott, of Marietta, Ohio, the morning after the assassination of President Lincoln, and the entire cost of said monument, amounting to $17,000, was paid by subscriptions of colored people. It was unveiled April 14, 1876.

James Russell Lowell, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 22, 1819. He received his degree in 1838, at Harvard, and his first production was a class poem which was delivered on that date. He was successor of Professor Longfellow in the chair of Modern Languages at Harvard College. In 1877 he was appointed by President Hayes to the Spanish Mission, from which he was transferred in 1880 to the Court of St. James. A long list of poetical works have been published to his credit. He died August 12, 1891.

COMMEMORATION ODE

Life may be given in many ways,
And loyalty to Truth be sealed
As bravely in the closet as the field,
So bountiful is Fate;
But then to stand beside her,
When craven churls deride her,
To front a lie in arms and not to yield,
This shows, methinks, God's plan
And measures of a stalwart man,
Limbed like the old heroic breeds,
Who stand self-poised on manhood's solid earth;
Not forced to frame excuses for his birth,
Fed from within with all the strength he needs.

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief,
Whom late the Nation he had led,
With ashes on her head,
Wept with the passion of an angry grief;
Forgive me, if from present things I turn
To speak what in my heart will beat and burn,
And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn.
Nature, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating us by rote:
For him her Old World molds aside she threw,
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast
Of the unexhausted West,

With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
How beautiful to see
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed,
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead;
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be,
Not lured by any cheat of birth,
But by his clear-grained human worth,
And brave old wisdom of sincerity!
They knew that outward grace is dust;
They could not choose but trust
In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill,
And supple-tempered will
That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust!

His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind,
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars,
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind;
Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined,
Fruitful and friendly for all human kind,
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars.
Nothing of Europe here,
Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still,
Ere any names of Serf or Peer
Could Nature's equal scheme deface;
Here was a type of the true elder race,
And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face.

I praise him not; it were too late;
And some innative weakness there must be
In him who condescends to victory
Such as the present gives, and cannot wait,
Safe in himself as in a fate.
So always firmly he;
He knew to bide his time,
And can his fame abide,
Still patient in his simple faith sublime,
Till the wise years decide.
Great captains, with their guns and drums,
Disturb our judgment for the hour,
But at last silence comes;
These are all gone, and, standing like a tower,
Our children shall behold his fame,
The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American.

By Leonard W. Volk]

Richard Henry Stoddard, born in Hingham, Massachusetts, July 2, 1825. His first book, entitled _Foot Prints_, was published in 1849, and some three years after a more mature collection of poems was published. In later years a number of his books were published, all of which have been received with approbation by the public. Died May 12, 1903.

AN HORATIAN ODE

(_To Lincoln_)

Not as when some great captain falls
In battle, where his country calls,
Beyond the struggling lines
That push his dread designs

To doom, by some stray ball struck dead:
Or in the last charge, at the head
Of his determined men,
Who must be victors then!

Nor as when sink the civic great,
The safer pillars of the State,
Whose calm, mature, wise words
Suppress the need of swords!

With no such tears as e'er were shed
Above the noblest of our dead
Do we today deplore
The man that is no more.

Our sorrow hath a wider scope,
Too strange for fear, too vast for hope,--
A wonder, blind and dumb,
That waits--what is to come!

Not more astonished had we been
If madness, that dark night, unseen,
Had in our chambers crept,
And murdered while we slept!

We woke to find a mourning earth--
Our Lares shivered on the hearth,--
To roof-tree fallen--all
That could affright, appall!

Such thunderbolts, in other lands,
Have smitten the rod from royal hands,
But spared, with us, till now,
Each laureled Caesar's brow.

No Caesar he, whom we lament,
A man without a precedent,
Sent it would seem, to do
His work--and perish too!

Not by the weary cares of state,
The endless tasks, which will not wait,
Which, often done in vain,
Must yet be done again;

Not in the dark, wild tide of war,
Which rose so high, and rolled so far,
Sweeping from sea to sea
In awful anarchy;--

Four fateful years of mortal strife,
Which slowly drained the Nation's life,
(Yet, for each drop that ran
There sprang an armed man!)

Not then;--but when by measures meet--
By victory, and by defeat,
By courage, patience, skill,
The people's fixed "We will!"

Had pierced, had crushed rebellion dead--
Without a hand, without a head:--
At last, when all was well,
He fell--O, how he fell!

Tyrants have fallen by such as thou,
And good hath followed,--may it now!
(God lets bad instruments
Produce the best events.)

But he, the man we mourn today,
No tyrant was; so mild a sway
In one such weight who bore
Was never known before!

_From "Poems of Richard Henry Stoddard"_
Copyright, 1880, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

Walt Whitman, born in West Hills, Long Island, New York, May 31, 1819. He was educated in the public schools of Brooklyn and New York City. Learned the printing trade at which he worked during the summer and taught school in winter. He made long pedestrian tours through the United States and even extended his tramps through Canada. His chief work, _Leaves of Grass_, is a series of poems through which he earned the praise of some and the abuse of others. He visited the army when a brother was wounded and remained afterward as a volunteer nurse. Died 1892.

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every wrack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel firm and daring;

But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen, cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores
a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here, Captain! dear Father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My Father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck where my Captain lies,
Fallen, cold and dead.

By Lott Flannery, in front of the Court House, Washington Unveiled
April 16, 1868]

Henry de Garrs, of Sheffield, England, wrote these lines on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. They were published in England in 1889, and later in America, in the _Century_.

ON THE ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN

What dreadful rumor, hurtling o'er the sea,
Too monstrous for belief, assails our shore?
Men pause and question, Can such foul crime be?
Till lingering doubt may cling to hope no more.
Not when great Caesar weltered in his gore,
Nor since, in time, or circumstance, or place,
Hath crime so shook the World's great heart before.
O World! O World! of all thy records base,
Time wears no fouler scar on his time-smitten face.

A king of men, inured to hardy toil,
Rose truly royal up the steeps of life,
Till Europe's monarchs seemed to dwarf the while
Beneath his greatness--great when traitors rife
Pierced deep his country's heart with treason-knife;
But greatest when victorious he stood,
Crowning with mercy freedom's greatest strife.
The world saw the new light of godlike good
Ere the assassin's hand shed his most precious blood.

Lament thy loss, sad sister of the West:
Not one, but many nations with thee weep;
Cherish thy martyr on thy wounded breast,
And lay him with thy Washington to sleep.
Earth holds no fitter sepulcher to keep
His royal heart--one of thy kings to be
Who reign even from the grave; whose scepters sweep
More potent over human destiny
Than all ambition's pride and power and majesty.

Yet, yet rejoice that thou hadst such a son;
The mother of such a man should never sigh;
Could longer life a nobler cause have won?
Could longest age more gloriously die?
Oh! lift thy heart, thy mind, thy soul on high
With deep maternal pride, that from thy womb
Came such a son to scourge hell's foulest lie
Out of life's temple. Watchers by his tomb!
He is not there, but risen: that grave is
slavery's doom.

POETICAL TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

_By Emily J. Bugbee_

There's a burden of grief on the breezes of Spring,
And a song of regret from the bird on its wing;
There's a pall on the sunshine and over the flowers,
And a shadow of graves on these spirits of ours;
For a star hath gone out from the night of our sky,
On whose brightness we gazed as the war-cloud roll'd by;
So tranquil, and steady, and clear were its beams,
That they fell like a vision of peace on our dreams.

A heart that we knew had been true to our weal,
And a hand that was steadily guiding the wheel;
A name never tarnished by falsehood or wrong,
That had dwelt in our hearts like a soul-stirring song.
Ah! that pure, noble spirit has gone to its rest,
And the true hand lies nerveless and cold on his breast;
But the name and the memory--_these_ never will die,
But grow brighter and dearer as ages go by.

Yet the tears of a Nation fall over the dead,
Such tears as a Nation before never shed;
For our cherished one fell by a dastardly hand,
A martyr to truth and the cause of the land;
And a sorrow has surged, like the waves to the shore,
When the breath of the tempest is sweeping them o'er,
And the heads of the lofty and lowly have bowed,
As the shaft of the lightning sped out from the cloud.

Not gathered, like Washington, home to his rest,
When the sun of his life was far down in the West;
But stricken from earth in the midst of his years,
With the Canaan in view, of his prayers and his tears.
And the people, whose hearts in the wilderness failed,
Sometimes, when the star of their promise had paled,
Now, stand by his side on the mount of his fame,
And yield him their hearts in a grateful acclaim.

Muskegon, Michigan, Charles Niehaus, sculptor]

John Nichol, born at Montrose, Forfarshire, Scotland, September 8, 1833. He was a professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow (1861-1889), and did much to make American books popular in England. His numerous publications include: _Leaves_ (1854), verse; _Tables of European History, 200-1876 A.D._ (1876); fourth edition (1888); _Byron in English Men of Letters series_; _American Literature, 1520-1880_ (1882). He was an ardent advocate of the Northern cause during the Civil War, and visited the United States at the close of the conflict. He died at London, England, October 11, 1894.

LINCOLN, 1865

An end at last! The echoes of the war--
The weary war beyond the Western waves--
Die in the distance. Freedom's rising star
Beacons above a hundred thousand graves;

The graves of heroes who have won the fight,
Who in the storming of the stubborn town
Have rung the marriage peal of might and right,
And scaled the cliffs and cast the dragon down.

Pæans of armies thrill across the sea,
Till Europe answers--"Let the struggle cease.
The bloody page is turned; the next may be
For ways of pleasantness and paths of peace!"

A golden morn--a dawn of better things--
The olive-branch--clasping of hands again--
A noble lesson read to conquered kings--
A sky that tempests had not scoured in vain.

This from America we hoped and him
Who ruled her "in the spirit of his creed."
Does the hope last when all our eyes are dim,
As history records her darkest deed?

The pilot of his people through the strife,
With his strong purpose turning scorn to praise,
E'en at the close of battle reft of life
And fair inheritance of quiet days.

Defeat and triumph found him calm and just,
He showed how clemency should temper power,
And, dying, left to future times in trust
The memory of his brief victorious hour.

O'ermastered by the irony of fate,
The last and greatest martyr of his cause;
Slain like Achilles at the Scæan gate,
He saw the end, and fixed "the purer laws."

May these endure and, as his work, attest
The glory of his honest heart and hand--
The simplest, and the bravest, and the best--
The Moses and the Cromwell of his land.

Too late the pioneers of modern spite,
Awe-stricken by the universal gloom,
See his name lustrous in Death's sable night,
And offer tardy tribute at his tomb.

But we who have been with him all the while,
Who knew his worth, and loved him long ago,
Rejoice that in the circuit of our isle
There is at last no room for Lincoln's foe.

"The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation."
Painted by Frank B. Carpenter.

From left to right--Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War; Salmon
P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury; President Lincoln; Gideon
Welles, Secretary of the Navy; William H. Seward, Secretary of
State; J. P. Usher, Secretary of the Interior; Montgomery Blair,
Postmaster-General; Edward Bates, Attorney-General]

Christopher Pearse Cranch, born in Alexandria, Virginia, March 8, 1813. Graduated at the school of Divinity, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1835, but retired from the ministry in 1842 to devote himself to art. He studied in Italy in 1846-8, and lived and painted in 1853-63, and, returning to New York, was elected a member of the National Academy in 1864. He was a graceful writer of both prose and verse.

LINCOLN

But yesterday--the exulting nation's shout
Swelled on the breeze of victory through our streets,
But yesterday--our banners flaunted out
Like flowers the south wind woos from their retreats;
Flowers of the nation, blue, and white, and red,
Waving from balcony, and spire, and mast;
Which told us that war's wintry storm had fled,
And spring was more than spring to us at last.

Today the nation's heart lies crushed and weak;
Drooping and draped in black our banners stand.
Too stunned to cry revenge, we scarce may speak
The grief that chokes all utterance through the land.
God is in all. With tears our eyes are dim,
Yet strive through darkness to look to Him!

No, not in vain he died--not all in vain,
Our good, great President! This people's hands
Are linked together in one mighty chain
Drawn tighter still in triple-woven bands
To crush the fiends in human masks, whose might
We suffer, oh, too long! No league, nor truce
Save men with men! The devils we must fight
With fire! God wills it in this deed. This use
We draw from the most impious murder done
Since Calvary. Rise then, O Countrymen!
Scatter these marsh-lights hopes of Union won
Through pardoning clemency. Strike, strike again!
Draw closer round the foe a girdling flame.
We are stabbed whene'er we spare--strike in God's name!

Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Randolph Rogers,
sculptor. Unveiled November 26, 1869]

George Henry Boker, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 6th day of October, 1823. Graduated at Princeton in 1842, and afterward studied law. In the year 1847, after his return from an extended tour in Europe, he published _The Lessons of Life and Other Poems_. He also produced a number of plays which were successfully produced upon the stage, both in England and America. During the War of the Rebellion he wrote a number of patriotic lyrics, collected and published in a volume under the title of _Poems of the War_. He has also written other poems and articles in prose which have received high praise.

In the year 1871 he was appointed by President Grant as our United States Minister to Turkey, but in 1875 was transferred to the more important Mission of Russia.

LINCOLN

Crown we our heroes with a holier wreath
Than man e'er wore upon this side of death;
Mix with their laurels deathless asphodels,
And chime their pæans from the sacred bells!
Nor in your praises forget the martyred Chief,
Fallen for the gospel of your own belief,
Who, ere he mounted to the people's throne,
Asked for your prayers, and joined in them his own.
I knew the man. I see him, as he stands
With gifts of mercy in his outstretched hands;
A kindly light within his gentle eyes,
Sad as the toil in which his heart grew wise;
His lips half parted with the constant smile
That kindled truth, but foiled the deepest guile;
His head bent forward, and his willing ear
Divinely patient right and wrong to hear:
Great in his goodness, humble in his state,
Firm in his purpose, yet not passionate,
He led his people with a tender hand,
And won by love a sway beyond command.
Summoned by lot to mitigate a time
Frenzied with rage, unscrupulous with crime,
He bore his mission with so meek a heart
That Heaven itself took up his people's part;
And when he faltered, helped him ere he fell,
Eking his efforts out by miracle.
No king this man, by grace of God's intent;
No, something better, freeman,--President!
A nature modeled on a higher plan,
Lord of himself, an inborn gentleman!

Photo by Brady, 1864]

Phoebe Cary was born near Cincinnati, Ohio, September 24, 1824. Her advantages for education were somewhat better than those of her sister Alice, whose almost inseparable companion she became at an early age. They were quite different, however, in temperament, in person and in mental constitution. Phoebe began to write verse at the age of seventeen years, and one of her earliest poems, _Nearer Home_, beginning with "One sweetly solemn thought," won her a world-wide reputation. In the joint housekeeping in New York she took from choice (Alice being for many years an invalid) the larger share of duties upon herself, and hence found little opportunity for literary work. In society, however, she was brilliant, but at all times kindly. She wrote a touching tribute to her sister's memory, published in the _Ladies' Repository_ a few days before her own death, which occurred at Newport, R. I., July 31, 1871. In the volume of _Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary_ (Philadelphia, 1850) but about one-third were written by Phoebe. Her independently published books are _Poems and Parodies_ (1854), and _Poems of Faith, Hope and Love_ (1868).

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Our sun hath gone down at the noonday,
The heavens are black;
And over the morning the shadows
Of night-time are back.

Stop the proud boasting mouth of the cannon,
Hush the mirth and the shout;
God is God! and the ways of Jehovah
Are past finding out.

Lo! the beautiful feet on the mountains,
That yesterday stood;
The white feet that came with glad tidings
Are dabbled in blood.

The Nation that firmly was settling
The crown on her head,
Sits, like Rizpah, in sackcloth and ashes,
And watches her dead.

Who is dead? who, unmoved by our wailing
Is lying so low?
O, my Land, stricken dumb in your anguish,
Do you feel, do you know?

Once this good man we mourn, overwearied,
Worn, anxious, oppressed,
Was going out from his audience chamber
For a season to rest;

Unheeding the thousands who waited
To honor and greet,
When the cry of a child smote upon him
And turned back his feet.

"Three days hath a woman been waiting,"
Said they, "patient and meek."
And he answered, "Whatever her errand,
Let me hear; let her speak!"

So she came, and stood trembling before him
And pleaded her cause;
Told him all; how her child's erring father
Had broken the laws.

Humbly spake she: "I mourn for his folly,
His weakness, his fall";
Proudly spake she: "he is not a TRAITOR,
And I love him through all!"

Then the great man, whose heart had been shaken
By a little babe's cry;
Answered soft, taking counsel of mercy,
"This man shall not die!"

Why, he heard from the dungeons, the rice-fields,
The dark holds of ships;
Every faint, feeble cry which oppression
Smothered down on men's lips.

In her furnace, the centuries had welded
Their fetter and chain;
And like withes, in the hands of his purpose,
He snapped them in twain.

Who can be what he was to the people;
What he was to the State?
Shall the ages bring to us another
As good and as great?

Our hearts with their anguish are broken,
Our wet eyes are dim;
For us is the loss and the sorrow,
The triumph for him!

For, ere this, face to face with his Father
Our Martyr hath stood;
Giving into his hand the white record
With its great seal of blood!

That the hand which reached out of the darkness
Hath taken the whole?
Yea, the arm and the head of the people--
The heart and the soul!

And that heart, o'er whose dread awful silence
A nation has wept;
Was the truest, and gentlest, and sweetest
A man ever kept!

By Augustus Saint Gaudens, in Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois]

On the 22nd of October, 1887, this statue by Saint Gaudens was unveiled, Mr. Eli Bates donating $40,000 for that purpose. There is a vast oval of cut stone, thirty by sixty feet, the interior fashioned to form a classic bench, and the statue stands on a stone pedestal. The sculptor represents him as an orator, just risen from his chair, which is shown behind him, and waiting for the audience to become quiet before beginning his speech. The attitude is that always assumed by Lincoln at the beginning--one hand behind him, and the other grasping the lapel of his coat. He appears the very incarnation of rugged grandeur which held the master mind of this age.

Charles Graham Halpin (Miles O'Reilly) was born near Oldcastle, County of Meath, Ireland, November 20, 1829. Graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1846. He entered the field of journalism as a profession and soon gained a reputation in England. Came to New York in 1852 and secured employment with the _Herald_, was later connected with other papers. Enlisted in April, 1861, and became lieutenant of Colonel Corcoran's 69th Regiment, rising to the rank of brigadier-general. He died in New York City, August 3, 1868.

LINCOLN

He filled the Nation's eyes and heart,
An honored, loved, familiar name;
So much a brother that his fame
Seemed of our lives a common part.

His towering figure, sharp and spare,
Was with such nervous tension strung,
As if on each strained sinew swung
The burden of a people's care.

His changing face, what pen can draw--
Pathetic, kindly, droll or stern;
And with a glance so quick to learn
The inmost truth of all he saw.

Pride found no place to spawn
Her fancies in his busy mind.
His worth, like health or air, could find
No just appraisal till withdrawn.

He was his country's--not his own;
He had no wish but for the weak,
Nor for himself could think or feel,
But as a laborer for her throne.

Her flag upon the heights of power--
Stainless and unassayed to place,
To this one end his earnest face
Was bent through every burdened hour.

. . . . .

But done the battle--won the strife;
When torches light his vaulted tomb,
Broad gems flash out and crowns illume
The clay-cold brow undecked in life.

. . . . .

O, loved and lost! Thy patient toil
Had robed our cause in victory's light;
Our country stood redeemed and bright,
With not a slave on all her soil.

'Mid peals of bells and cannon's bark,
And shouting streets with flags abloom,
Sped the shrill arrow of thy doom,
And, in an instant, all was dark!

. . . . .

A martyr to the cause of man,
His blood is Freedom's Eucharist,
And in the world's great hero list
His name shall lead the van.

Yes! ranked on Faith's white wings unfurled
In Heaven's pure light, of him we say,
"He fell on the self-same day
A Greater died to save the world."

Unveiled February 21, 1903]

He who seeks the embodiment of the genius of the Union finds it in the apotheosis of the Great Emancipator. There, under the arching skies he stands, erect, serene, resplendent; beneath his feet the broken shackles of a race redeemed; upon his brow the diadem of liberty with law, while around and behind him rise up, as an eternal guard of honor, the great army of the Republic.

In the belief that from the martyr's bier as from the battlefield of right it is but one step to paradise, may we not, on days like this, draw back the veil that separates from our mortal gaze the phantom squadrons as they pass again in grand review before their "Martyr President."--_From an address by Hiram F. Stevens, read before the Minnesota Commandery of the Loyal Legion._

THE MARTYR PRESIDENT

In solid platoons of steel,
Under heaven's triumphant arch,
The long lines break and wheel,
And the order is "Forward, March!"
The colors ripple o'erhead,
The drums roll up to the sky,
And with martial time and tread
The regiments all pass by--
The ranks of the faithful dead
Meeting their president's eye.
March on, your last brave mile!
Salute him, star and lace!
Form 'round him, rank and file,
And look on the kind, rough face.
But the quaint and homely smile
Has a glory and a grace
It has never known erstwhile,
Never in time or space.
Close 'round him, hearts of pride!
Press near him, side by side!
For he stands there not alone.
For the holy right he died,
And Christ, the crucified,
Waits to welcome his own.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

_Written for the Lincoln Memorial Album, by
Eugene J. Hall, 1882._

O honored name, revered and undecaying,
Engraven on each heart, O soul sublime!
That, like a planet through the heavens straying,
Outlives the wreck of time!

O rough, strong soul, your noble self-possession
Is unforgotten. Still your work remains.
You freed from bondage and from vile oppression
A race in clanking chains.

O furrowed face, beloved by all the nation!
O tall gaunt form, to memory fondly dear!
O firm, bold hand, our strength and our salvation!
O heart that knew no fear!

Lincoln, your manhood shall survive forever,
Shedding a fadeless halo round your name;
Urging men on, with wise and strong endeavor,
To bright and honest fame!

Through years of care, to rest and joy a stranger,
You saw complete the work you had begun,
Thoughtless of threats, nor heeding death or danger,
You toiled till all was done.

You freed the bondman from his iron master,
You broke the strong and cruel chains he wore,
You saved the Ship of State from foul disaster
And brought her safe to shore.

You fell! An anxious nation's hopes seemed blighted,
While millions shuddered at your dreadful fall;
But _God is good_! His wondrous hand has righted
And reunited all.

You fell, but in your death you were victorious;
To moulder in the tomb your form has gone,
While through the world your great soul grows more glorious
As years go gliding on!

All hail, great Chieftain! Long will sweetly cluster
A thousand memories round your sacred name,
Nor time, nor death shall dim the spotless luster
That shines upon your fame.

By Vinnie Ream, rotunda of the Capitol, Washington, D. C.]