4******************************* 
 
 i, Washington 
 
 Itbntrg 
 
 Extension Lincoln Book 
 
 StflTE COLLEGE OF WASHINGTON 
 IDF 
 

 EXCHANGE 
 
EXCHANGE 
 
THE LINCOLN TETRALOGY 
 
 BY 
 
 DENTON J. SNIDER. 
 
 A national epos in four separate poems cor 
 responding to the chief epochs of Lincoln s 
 career, and setting forth especially his inner life 
 and its transformations along with the outer 
 events of his time. 
 
 I. LINCOLN IN THE BLACK HAWK WAR. 
 The first pivotal episode in Lin 
 coln s evolution, written in free 
 rhymed tetrameters $1.50 
 
 II. LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. The 
 love idyl of Lincoln s life, written 
 in hexameters 1.50 
 
 III. LINCOLN IN THE WHITE HOUSE. Lin 
 
 coln s development through inner 
 and outer conflict to his national 
 greatness blank verse and prose 1.50 
 
 IV. LINCOLN AT RICHMOND, portraying his 
 
 last days of triumph and tragedy 
 
 1.50 
 
LINCOLN 
 
 AT 
 
 RICHMOND 
 
 A Dramatic Epos of the Civil War 
 
 BY .< 
 DENTON J. SNIDER 
 
 ST. LOUIS, MO. 
 
 SIGMA PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 210 PINE ST. 
 

 
 Copyright 1914 
 BY DENTON J. SNIDER 
 
 Nixon-Jones Printing Co. 
 SIS Pine Street, St. Louis 
 
LINCOLN AT RICHMOND 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Prologue 5 
 
 PART FIRST 
 Lincoln at the Crossing 
 
 I. The Last See Saw 19 
 
 II. Lincoln and Grant 36 
 
 III. Lincoln s Monologue 43 
 
 IV. Grant s Monologue 53 
 
 V. Lincoln and Lamon 55 
 
 V 
 
 VI. Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan ... 65 
 
 VII. The Triumph of Personality .... 78 
 
 VIII. Lincoln in the Saddle 89 
 
 IX. The Place of Suffering 100 
 
 X. Reminiscent Ill 
 
 XI. Resurgam 123 
 
 XII. Crossing the Fatal Line 131 
 
 XIII. Ramble through Petersburg .... 140 
 
 XIV. Lincoln and the Soldier 147 
 
 XV. The Lady Eulalia Lovelace .... 155 
 
 (3) 
 
 Ml 77943 
 
TABLE OP CONTENTS. 
 
 PART SECOND 
 The Fall of Richmond 
 
 Page 
 
 Prologue 171 
 
 I. Up the James 177 
 
 II. Under Doom 188 
 
 III. The Doom 196 
 
 IV. The Doom Lifting 203 
 
 V. The Doom Undoomed 212 
 
 PART THIRD 
 Lincoln s Richmond 
 
 Page 
 
 Prologue 217 
 
 I. Lincoln s New Office 225 
 
 II. The Masque of Harmonies .... 236 
 
 III. The African Jubilee 252 
 
 IV. The Black Crook 263 
 
 V. Virginia 271 
 
 VI. The Spectacle of the Genii .... 284 
 
 VII. Robert Anderson s Visit 297 
 
 VIII. The Ring of Unf ate 307 
 
 IX. The Spectral Duel 314 
 
 X. At the Richmond Hospital .... 328 
 
 XI. The Two Hates 343 
 
 XII. The Last Pageant 352 
 
 Historic Intimations 374 
 
 (4) 
 
LINCOLN AT RICHMOND. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 Look ye at Abraham Lincoln now afloat 
 
 Upon the little craft caller River Queen, 
 
 "Whose keel runs kissing the Potomac s ripples 
 
 For miles and miles in tender undertone 
 
 Attuned to the bright joys of loving Spring, 
 
 Which thrill his spouse, the Earth, to glad creation 
 
 After the winter s barren godlessness. 
 
 On either side of the enraptured boat 
 
 The lounging banks stretch out sunning themselves 
 
 In overflow of vernal ecstacy 
 
 That breathes the season s subtle harmonies 
 
 Of greening fields and open-hearted hills 
 
 Bedight with peeping eyelets flowery, 
 
 And the fleet play of Nature s iridescence. 
 
 (5) 
 
 422958 
 
6 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND. 
 
 Lincoln on deck upright is glancing back 
 The lifted mood of the season s buoyancy, 
 Which seems a foreplay of his life s own goal 
 Still hid behind his long expectancy, 
 But throbbing now to be born into fact ; 
 And with him there has come another self 
 Yet too his own at being s primal fount: 
 The Presence regnant in his upper realm, 
 But fusing with his personality 
 To guide the boat up to the wharf at Richmond, 
 Where rounds the circle of his whole career 
 Whose term is epilogued of tragedy. 
 
 But now the President hath tuned himself 
 To harmony with Nature s overture, 
 As she intones her freedom s risen soul 
 From Winter s icy chains of servitude, 
 To hymn a race s new enfranchisement. 
 He feels his own a resurrected world, 
 With that of Earth relborn to fresh green life, 
 Out of the deepest frozen Hell of Fate 
 Into whose pit he has for years been damned 
 To wander with his people for their sins, 
 Like melancholy spirits of the lost. 
 
 Another image fleeting fitfully 
 
 Oft hovers in his sight upon this trip : 
 
 Tis that of Douglas at their interview 
 
PROLOG UE 
 
 Held in the White-House on the day of Sumter, 
 
 Which was the starting-point of the great War 
 
 Now rounding out itself into its end, 
 
 So that the semblance seemed to have the power 
 
 To interlink the time s first act and last 
 
 Into one cycle whole of History. 
 
 The shadowy shape revealed another gift : 
 
 It minded Lincoln of their common fate 
 
 Anew forecast in his deep soul of presage, 
 
 For Douglas had preluded in his death 
 
 The coming of the mighty tragedy, 
 
 While Lincoln still alive had oft forefelt 
 
 And now forefeels himself its mortal close, 
 
 The greatest day for both is day of doom, 
 
 But for the Nation is the life new-born. 
 
LINCOLN AT RICHMOND. 
 
 BACKLOOK. 
 
 While Lincoln stood with upturned gaze ahead, 
 His whirling thought had circled him aback 
 To that world-pregnant moment which begins 
 His fraught quadrennium of Presidency, 
 Bearing the node historic of the ages ; 
 Then started he to query his career : 
 "Four years agone upon an April day 
 Not very different from this in balm, 
 I dared to issue my first Proclamation 
 In answer to the mad assault on Sumter; 
 At once the Nation kindled to a blaze 
 Which rages still along two battle fronts 
 Eyeing each other for the deadly bite 
 Here in the East between the Capitals, 
 Which lie on the Potomac and the James. 
 That Fatal Line atwixt the armies twain 
 I feel ingrown with my last destiny ; 
 But I must now expunge it from this land 
 Though with its life I shall yield up my own, 
 So deeply intertwined have run our days 
 That we together shall be coffined quite 
 In that same moment of devouring time." 
 
 Hit by the arrowed sting of his own thought 
 He leaped forth to his self -recovery : 
 
PROLOGUE BACKLOOK. 9 
 
 "But why should I turn weeping- willow thus 
 To droop the sparkle of my leaves to earth, 
 Putting the sunshine in a gloom for me, 
 As I look upward at my tragedy? 
 Let me recall how changed is this salute 
 Which the blue eye of yon round Ocean rolls 
 At me in friendly hospitality: 
 So different from the time when through these waters 
 I took the passage to McClellan s lines 
 Which had turned back from the high enterprise 
 Whose drop made the whole Nation sag in doubt. 
 Then crashed down on my craft the maddened storm 
 Of wave and wind from an envenomed Heaven, 
 The stalwart vessel plunged into the seas, 
 Sank overflowed yet rose again to sight, 
 While every timber cracked and mortise groaned 
 Responsive to the tempest s scoffing howl, 
 As if the demons sported with my dole 
 Drenching me with their spray mid jeering whiffs, 
 And whirling me ten thousand cynic laughs 
 When my good hat, just bought, washed over 
 board." 
 
 Thus Lincoln looking backward funned a smile 
 Which soon stole down into his heart of sighs, 
 Bubbling to words as he bethought the time : 
 "But fiercer shrilled the storm within my soul 
 Than all that oceanic roar outside ; 
 The stricken State dropped sinking under me 
 
10 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND. 
 
 Which I was helming to its goal of hope ; 
 
 Our army had recoiled from Bichmond s walls 
 
 And beaten lay within its sullen tents, 
 
 The Fatal Line which severed the whole Nation 
 
 I found more deeply graved and bloodily, 
 
 Than ever I had seen its chasm before. 
 
 But what was worse, it seemed to be 
 
 Within the very heart of all that host 
 
 Whose leader showed it stamped upon his speech 
 
 As well as everywhere upon his deeds. 
 
 That meant to me this Union is atwain, 
 
 Its rift impassable outside and in, 
 
 The Lord Himself turns rebel to the right 
 
 But stop ! why stir to flames the Hell that s past, 
 
 The present one is hot enough, God knows ; 
 
 Down baleful reminiscence to the pit! 
 
 I must bethink me of new strategy, 
 
 With which to countervail the thrusting hour 
 
 Which now comes tolling portents o er this way, 
 
 Presaging to my soul a bodement fresh 
 
 The menace of success, not of defeat, 
 
 For victory has too its devil sconced, 
 
 Whom I must exorcise in God s good name." 
 
PROLOGUE FORELOOK. 
 
 FORELOOK. 
 
 Thus Lincoln turned to ruminate his task, 
 The deepest, subtlest, and the secretest, 
 Which he dared whisper only to himself 
 In moments of his soul s last intimacy. 
 Why did he take this trip down to the James? 
 An outing pleasant for a tense-wrought man 
 Who needed to unbend his four years tension 
 A week or so of tuneful holidays, 
 And see his soldier boys now triumphing : 
 Such was the public reason read in print. 
 Then he would shun the office-seekers horde 
 Which were alighting like a locusts storm 
 Upon the White-House, still to be his home, 
 Leased him four years longer by the people ; 
 So he ran off awhile from Washington: 
 Such were some outer reasons for his journey. 
 But the chief urge driving him thitherward 
 Was the anxiety he had kept wordless, 
 But which was nagging him with increased worry, 
 Until he had to start that he be there 
 Where he foresaw might break forth suddenly 
 The final crisis of the long-fought war, 
 Whose bayonets must yield to civil power 
 Which he should represent supremely throned. 
 
12 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND. 
 
 Thus he began to word unvoiced his mind, 
 
 And cite before himself his hid misgivings: 
 
 Success has wreathed at last our Generals, 
 
 But with the triumph comes the problem new ! 
 
 The trinity of chiefs victorious 
 
 Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, the war s elect 
 
 Have now been purged in the fierce fire of war 
 
 Until they rise up pedestaled aloft, 
 
 Acclaimed by all the people witnessing 
 
 Their martial deeds of supereminence. 
 
 That gives me too the joy of victory, 
 
 "Which titillates me every drop of blood. 
 
 Still I must haste to scan the gloried three, 
 
 For I would read Grant s silence in its depths, 
 
 Winnow the talk of Sherman s fluent tongue, 
 
 And mark how trends the dash of Sheridan. 
 
 All three are now converging to one point 
 
 Though hitherto so widely separate 
 
 That point is Richmond, the proud Capital, 
 
 Where still rebellion has authority 
 
 And holds within itself its greatest men. 
 
 The three will meet perchance at Grant s big tent, 
 
 I must be there with my supremacy 
 
 To overgeneral my Generals 
 
 To whom it may be well enough to show 
 
 Law s majesty in presence of their council. 
 
 I know I have their love, they would do nought 
 
 With purposed will to violate the law, 
 
PROLOGUE FORELOOK. 13 
 
 And yet I have to guard against the spirit 
 
 Which grows, to them unconscious, with their work, 
 
 The slow deposit of the soldier s calling 
 
 Which may imperil freedom to our State. 
 
 How should I dare forget that early strife 
 
 Which often made me hopeless of my task, 
 
 When my first Generals one in the East, 
 
 One in the West McClellan and Fremont 
 
 Would breach the claim of civil sovereignty ! 
 
 That double-dragon fight still makes me shiver 
 
 As the infernal time of my whole life 
 
 When its demonic jaws kept snapping at my office. 
 
 Both military men defied my rule 
 
 They had no love for me nor for the law, 
 
 And would themselves seize my authority. 
 
 That was the hardest lesson of my school, 
 
 And yet perchance most needful to me now, 
 
 To learn the soldier s basic consciousness, 
 
 Which dwells beneath his self s own cognizance, 
 
 Deeper and even other than his Will. 
 
 But both were failures at the height supernal, 
 
 They lacked success in war s initiative, 
 
 So they could never win dictatorship, 
 
 Which still would hover o er me menacing. 
 
 But now the turn is just the opposite : 
 
 Good fortune woos my greatest Generals 
 
 And makes them heroes to their soldiery 
 
 And to the people eager to admire. 
 
14 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND. 
 
 So the successful leader in his turn 
 
 Gives me to weigh his possibilities 
 
 And take the forecast of their flowering. 
 
 Now I have come to tend the war s last turn 
 
 And test a battle of my strategy 
 
 Upon the strategists of this campaign, 
 
 Lest they break out of their profession s field, 
 
 And wound, unwitting of offense, the State, 
 
 For whose integrity they stake their lives. 
 
 So when the last but hardest knot of all 
 
 In that long Fatal Line is cut atwain, 
 
 I must be there to enter the fresh breach, 
 
 And seal the crossing of it with my deed. 
 
 Thus Lincoln told the secret of himself 
 Unto himself and kept it all untold 
 To any confidant but his own soul, 
 "Whose larger mystery down underneath 
 He is now deeply led to peer upon, 
 Devoting to self s shrine a pilgrimage 
 In quest of his own being s Fount of Birth. 
 
PROLOGUE INLOOK. 15 
 
 INLOOK. 
 
 Alone he searched the bottom of his heart, 
 And through dark corridors of inner life 
 He wandered with his lamp of consciousness, 
 Turning its light into his depths of selfhood. 
 He seemed to feel the first genetic throb 
 Which hinted him of his whole destiny, 
 And made him share all human origin 
 Stirring in him the universal man 
 At his prime push into creation s bourne. 
 Sole he was seated on the moonlit deck 
 Peering out seaward toward the Infinite 
 Whereat each phosphorescent ripple seemed 
 To flash its little star of brief existence 
 As twere a sudden spark of Ocean s soul 
 Shot to a gleam in its evanishment, 
 Snapping a twinkle of all life and death: 
 "Such too am I, this individual," 
 Mused Lincoln to the tune of Nature s mood, 
 "A sparkle on the bosom of the All, 
 A wee scintilla of the sea of being 
 Why was I ever separated from it, 
 And shaped into my single human dot 
 To flash one moment of this self of mine 
 And then go out, extinguished in Eternity ? 
 
16 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND. 
 
 "While yet he asked, he knew a Presence there 
 
 Unseen, untouched by any outward sense, 
 
 But breathing a still message in his soul 
 
 At its first gush from the one Self of Selves 
 
 Into man s individuality. 
 
 That Presence had the power like to God s 
 
 To put its impress on our mortal speech, 
 
 Though this might stay unspoken to the ear, 
 
 Forging its words directly at their mint : 
 
 Thine is it to re-spin thy thread of life 
 
 "Which brought thee hither from the primal source 
 
 Forever re-creating thy creation, 
 
 Securing thus thine immortality. 
 
 Canst thou be second parent to thyself, 
 
 The other uppermost progenitor 
 
 Begetting thee begotton son of God 
 
 Who is none other than thy new-born Self? 
 
 The fate of Nature then thou shalt unf ate 
 
 Originating thine own origin 
 
 "Whereof Time is itself but one odd moment. 
 
 Till thou art father to thyself re-made 
 
 Thou hast not won thy deathless liberty, 
 
 And overcome thy being s boundary, 
 
 Like the Creator of the Universe 
 
 Who is but the one round of self-creation. 
 
 Lincoln was dazed by the outstretch of thought 
 Which him upbore from sources nethermost 
 Straining the bound of all intelligence. 
 
PROLOGUE INLOOK. 17 
 
 And yet far down he heard the Yes of God, 
 
 In depths of mind below his cognizance, 
 
 So that he gave an answer half in trance 
 
 Unto that Presence telling of creation : 
 
 1 Fathering myself I am the rightful son 
 
 Not of Tom Lincoln, but of God the Father ; 
 
 I must re-bear my birth not only now 
 
 But all my forbears hitherto in time 
 
 Repeating my ancestral genesis 
 
 Back, to its outburst from the All-in- All, 
 
 Else I am not mine own completed Self, 
 
 But some decaying morsel of me whole, 
 
 Scintillant of my slight mortality. 
 
 I shall take up my race s life in mine, 
 
 Abbreviate in me humanity, 
 
 The People s dateless representative, 
 
 The incarnation of all ages folk. 
 
 And mine own days from youth I must re-live, 
 
 Repeating ever fresh my genesis 
 
 At every stressful node of Life s encounter. 
 
 Lincoln leaped startled from his revery 
 
 Over the two abysses of his being, 
 
 Tthe backward and the forward counterstroke 
 
 Which cycled him to ceaseless resurrection, 
 
 The rounding endless of his very Self. 
 
 The boat was turning the bent promontory 
 Which curves the sea into the river James, 
 
18 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND. 
 
 Whose shores begin to show themselves as double 
 
 In the horizon s distance dimly limned. 
 
 Along this passage sailed the colonists 
 
 Who founded the first State Virginia 
 
 Starting the list of blooming Commonwealths 
 
 Now in the agony of mutual war 
 
 And also starting here the little rift 
 
 Which with the years has grown the Fatal Line, 
 
 Whose germ lay in that first shipload of blacks 
 
 Brought up this channel where we see 
 
 Lincoln now sailing to undo the deed, 
 
 The heirloom of two centuries and more. 
 
 This stream winds also the chief path 
 
 Which led the Cavalier to his new world ; 
 
 The Puritan, his foe, soon after came 
 
 Into like continental heritage, 
 
 And settled on the bleak New England hills. 
 
 Behold ! they have down here renewed the fight 
 
 Transporting their old feud from English strife, 
 
 Both have to be made over by our West 
 
 Which has to solve the dissonances harsh 
 
 Borne hither from aged Europe s polities. 
 
 But Lincoln now droops down to slumber s dreams, 
 
 Soothed to a sense of resurrected life, 
 
 While still alive, but likewise played upon 
 
 By presages of big futurity. 
 
fart fmt. 
 
 Lincoln at the Crossing. 
 I. 
 
 The Last See-Saw. 
 
 Boom! Boom! Boom! 
 
 Rumbling out the distant dawn 
 
 There rolls a deep-voiced growl 
 
 Low but savage, 
 
 As of some monster waking for its prey 
 
 At early twilight glinting morn. 
 
 Hark ! the bellow of angry cannonry ! 
 
 The heralds of battle now proclaim 
 
 From red-tongued mouths of hissing flames 
 
 The quest of their mortal breakfast. 
 
 Lincoln lay sleeping on his cot unruly 
 
 Berthed aboard the petty plodding steamer, 
 
 Fondled with Aurora s kisses 
 
 Which silvered o er his craggy features 
 
 (19) 
 
20 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 And smoothed down their care-hollowed gullies 
 
 To a moment of Heaven s serenity. 
 
 The roll of sounds soon played on his ear-drum 
 
 Reverberant in response, 
 
 Not waking him up, but starting throbs 
 
 Which chimed his long-harried soul 
 
 To a dream of what lay seething in it 
 
 With elemental ardors. 
 
 Out of that formless furious noise 
 
 There reared an image terrible, 
 
 Whose outline he had gloomily glimpsed 
 
 In fits of fantasy rampant 
 
 When he could vision the fact supreme 
 
 As it lay in the universal Mind. 
 
 See the monster upheave its head 
 
 A huge serpent curving between two armies ; 
 
 The living cylinder coils up 
 
 In rings its lissom frame, 
 
 Ready to snap its bloody jaws, 
 
 Or to dart its venomous forked tongue, 
 
 Or even to curl back over its body 
 
 With the thrust of its scorpion tail, 
 
 And sting in stabs of poison. 
 
 Take care, Lincoln ! 
 
 Its fiery eye-balls gleam on thee 
 
 Shooting their baleful lightnings! 
 
 Keep watch ! its body lithe is its lasso, 
 
 Whose spiraled noose it may twirl over thy head 
 
THE LAST SEE-SAW. 21 
 
 Swathing around thy frame 
 Its reptilian hug of death. 
 
 Boom! Boom! Boom! 
 
 Louder, nearer, angrier, 
 
 Dash the waves of smiting detonation 
 
 From gory belches of pitiless gunnery 
 
 Shooting fiery words in fleet Aurora s face 
 
 And torching the round horizon to a blaze 
 
 Till Heaven s dome turned Hell s flare 
 
 With the pit inverted. 
 
 And now was heard between volcanic crashes 
 
 Of mighty artillery 
 
 The snarling chit-chat multitudinous 
 
 Of gossipy musketry 
 
 Yet malicious as winged imps 
 
 "With their insidious pellets of lead 
 
 Singing many a soldier his last lullaby 
 
 To the sleep of the grave, 
 
 And whistling his requiem. 
 
 But listen again, my Lincoln ! 
 
 The mouthing cannon spell out thy name, 
 
 Syllable it on the yielding air 
 
 In thunderous repercussion, 
 
 Voicing with their hurling emphasis 
 
 A menace of dread to thee, 
 
 For hark the cannon-balls howling: 
 
 * Thou art the one I seek, just the one ! 
 
22 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 I am approaching now to envelop thee 
 
 In a hurrying hailstorm of missiles mortal, 
 
 One of which shall find thy heart." 
 
 But Lincoln laughed in his dream, 
 
 As if he had Destiny s pledge: 
 
 "Not here, not here! 
 
 Not by your bullet in my brain ! 
 
 My time is not yet come, 
 
 E en if I be near the Crossing." 
 
 But mark another miracle sudden, 
 
 Happing in hideous harmony : 
 
 The serpent upthrust its great flat head 
 
 And over held him agape its reddening gullet, 
 
 Shooting in chorus with the gunnery 
 
 Its snaky hisses into words : 
 
 I have now come to throttle thee, 
 
 Long thy arrival I have awaited, 
 
 I know thee for my mortal enemy 
 
 Eager to break me joint by joint 
 
 And to cross my severed body 
 
 At its last chief node just here. 
 
 One or the other of us is now to die, 
 
 Or both of us I defy thee." 
 
 But Lincoln awoke not, 
 
 Though writhing uneasily in his sweat, 
 
 And still clutched tight by his furious dream 
 
 Which would not let him raise his eyelids 
 
THE LA8T SEE-SAW. 23 
 
 To see the monster in outer light, 
 
 Being the creature of his deepest self, 
 
 Born of the very crisis of his soul- world ; 
 
 Wearily he had been watching for years, 
 
 Perched on his tottering tower of Hope 
 
 To witness those serpentine coils 
 
 As they would catch up and crush 
 
 Vast masses of soldiery battling, 
 
 Both of the blue and the gray, 
 
 Fateful to the one or the other 
 
 If either should try to cross it the Crossing; 
 
 But Lincoln himself has come to the Crossing. 
 
 Again the portent reared up whizzing its speech 
 
 Whose snaky sibilants shot in jets 
 
 From its slit tongue of vibrating hisses : 
 
 "Four years you have stood up the armed Will 
 
 Against me, seeking my vital part, 
 
 Now I aim at you; 
 
 I yet shall hug your windpipe noosed in my folds, 
 
 Constringing it to strangulation. 
 
 Whereat the mighty worm 
 
 Flung one of its rings over Lincoln s head 
 
 To lasso him on its grisly gallows ; 
 
 But he deftly slipped the scaly noose, 
 
 And leaped to his fence, ready to give 
 
 The final blow to the Satan of the Union. 
 
 So Lincoln had a new dragon-fight 
 
 With the monstered shape born of the War, 
 
24 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 The damned Apollyon of Secession. 
 Still the serpent coiled up desperate 
 Between the two contending hosts, 
 It would not flee, could not be killed, 
 Fixed as the Fate over both, 
 Devouring all who dared too near 
 Its Hell double-dealing on either side. 
 Soon it lay down aligned quite as before, 
 While its eye-shot fell earthward spent ; 
 Still the dream-god kept lullabying Lincoln, 
 And would not turn his shut senses loose 
 Into the open world. 
 
 Boom ! Boom ! Boom ! 
 
 The crash now doubled of both artilleries 
 
 Along two fire-lines, facing each other 
 
 In sulphurous Pandemonium, 
 
 And startled a tremble over the brooding air 
 
 Wherewith mingled in medley infernal 
 
 The victorious shout shrilled through with groans 
 
 Of those who crumpled down wounded and dying. 
 
 But see again the serpentine dream, 
 
 How it begins to rear and roll 
 
 Out of its brief quiescence 
 
 The many wheeled folds concentric, 
 
 Wreathing all its sinuous multiplicity 
 
 For a fresh cycled whirl of its stringent coils 
 
 Over its victim 
 
THE LAST SEE-SAW. 25 
 
 Like primeval megalosaurian, 
 
 Portentous progeny got of the Earth-mother 
 
 In her dark diabolic wrestle 
 
 With hoarest Chaos. 
 
 But mark its new sudden turn from Lincoln 
 
 Firmly planting himself for his dare 
 
 To clutch it tight by its scaled gorge 
 
 In his strong bony fists 
 
 And test the mutual throttle ! 
 
 Oh see its many mottled wheels 
 
 How it writhes convolutions backward 
 
 "Whirling around to the other side, 
 
 As if for a different combat ! 
 
 What fresh appearance is thence coming? 
 
 Behold a new figure f antasmal ! 
 
 A woman dawns out of the battle s smoke 
 
 Gigantic in full armor, 
 
 Like Pallas uprist in panoply Godlike 
 
 Standing high on Acropolis hill far visible. 
 
 Her features Lincoln well recognized 
 
 Even in their dazzling magnitude, 
 
 For he had visioned her twice before 
 
 Quite in the normal human size, yet ghostly, 
 
 At the White-House in Washington, 
 
 When she, the wrathful specter, bade him revoke 
 
 His two great Proclamations 
 
 Affirming Nationality first 
 
 And then Emancipation. 
 
26 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 But look again ! the spectacle ! 
 
 The prodigious snake of destiny 
 
 With venom-lightening glances 
 
 Turns round to front in a fight that semblance 
 
 Seeking to do to her the same deed 
 
 It had dared against Lincoln ; 
 
 Drawing up its full length to coil on coil, 
 
 To wrap her body in its convolving folds 
 
 It darts out to loup her neck 
 
 In a winding sheet of bandages. 
 
 But the lofty athletic Amazon 
 
 Wrenches the flaky noose of the hellish reptile 
 
 With the clutch of last despair 
 
 Contorting her fair features, 
 
 And she thrust it upward over her head, 
 
 With bulging brawn of arm and thigh, 
 
 Eesembling statued Laocoon of old 
 
 In his tense outreach of resistance 
 
 Straining against his hapless destiny, 
 
 As he wrestled with God-sent monsters 
 
 In cosmic agony 
 
 Reproaching the Gods. 
 
 Lincoln stood looking a world s compassion 
 Up at that mighty sufferer writhing, 
 Since he had been compelled for years 
 To wrestle with that self -same horror : 
 So he cried out in deepest sympathy ; 
 
THE LAST SEE-SAW. 27 
 
 " Repent, Virginia!" 
 
 Then faced the lofty visage from its perch 
 
 Down upon Lincoln s gracious pity 
 
 With recognition s melted eyes 
 
 Him bespeaking in tone of painful prayer : 
 
 The Fatal Line which first I saw when with thee 
 
 Drawn against me once in the White-House 
 
 By a supernal Presence, 
 
 Then trenched deeply so often on my soil 
 
 And overflowing with freshets of gore, 
 
 Has now turned to the vengeful fiend 
 
 Which whisks about me and crushes my people 
 
 In its demoniac folds. 
 
 Whereat with a fierce convulsive wrench 
 
 Of her superhuman organism 
 
 She made ready to meet a larger attack : 
 
 When Lincoln again besought her to hearken 
 
 The way of hope, proclaiming : 
 
 "Repent, Virginia, 
 
 And then we both shall slay the dragon 
 
 Now holding our hearts asunder, 
 
 And bury its horrid corpse forever." 
 
 The mountainous apparition 
 
 Drooped her stressful limbs and looks, 
 
 Letting her words wax low to voice unstrung : 
 
 victor, often thou hast lost to me, 
 
 But of defeat thou art the defeater. 
 
 Thine is the most colossal struggle 
 
28 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 With, failure our mortality ever knew, 
 And yet thou hast won I confess it 
 Made failure fail, 
 Thou hast undoomed Doom itself, 
 And undeviled the Devil in Hell. 
 At this the towering semblance 
 Uprose again to her loftiest stature, 
 And lifting her tense huge countenance 
 She screamed her uttermost paroxysm 
 Born of the torture of last despair 
 Undoing itself: 
 "Fate thou mayst coerce 
 And me." 
 
 The stabbing shriek of woman s voice 
 
 Uttering Destiny s words he had heard before 
 
 From her passions s wildest ecstasy, 
 
 But now madly whirled to import opposite, 
 
 Daggered Lincoln into his heart, 
 
 And cut the fetters adamantine 
 
 In which the tyrant sleep had bound him. 
 
 Therewith his dread dream $ped off at once 
 
 Into the rude reality, 
 
 For he awaking still heard the cannon s big boom 
 
 Mid rainy rattle of musketry, 
 
 Quite as they shot through his vision, 
 
 Undertoning the deeds and the words 
 
 Hissed from the prodigious Reptile. 
 
THE LAST SEE-SAW. 29 
 
 Lincoln was dazed at the shift so fleet 
 
 From dream to fact, exclaiming 
 
 "Are my light-eyes open now, 
 
 And not my inner vision? 
 
 Are my spooky spectacles on still, 
 
 Or is this the seen world again?" 
 
 He gave one high spring from his cot, 
 
 And rushed upon deck for Nature s sight 
 
 Hatless, coatless, bare feet in shoes unlaced, 
 
 His wire hair stiffened more than ever, 
 
 Shrilling the air in a high-strung note 
 
 With the sybilline interrogation : 
 
 "Is it for me? or I for it?" 
 
 The very gunnery seemed to answer : 
 
 "You I want you." 
 
 Whereat he gathered up his slunk shape 
 
 To his full height and tension, 
 
 And shouted : Nay, never ! 
 
 But you shall be mine. 
 
 He peered off Southward up to the clouds, 
 
 Which fluffed into dragonish shapes 
 
 Rising from burnt gunpowder s murk 
 
 As if signaling a new Armageddon, 
 
 Where the Fatal Line still lay outstretched 
 
 Between the two hosts defiantly gunning 
 
 While it challenged both sides 
 
 To the last encounter. 
 
 He thought he beheld the skiey reflex 
 
30 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Of his dream s hostile portent 
 
 Again to rear and writhe and coil 
 
 Through the Contortions of the combat 
 
 In momentary panorama, 
 
 Then to vanish away to the hazy void 
 
 Which rounded the world s horizon. 
 
 Now he looked first at himself 
 
 And caught sight of his undress, 
 
 He darted back speedily to his cabin 
 
 Whence he soon reappeared presentable. 
 
 The captain of the boat and its crew 
 
 Were already astir to lift anchor 
 
 If need be, and fall down stream 
 
 Beyond the range of battle s chance missiles, 
 
 Safeguarding the President. 
 
 Soon from behind the bush s young leafage 
 
 An orderly spurred galloping thirtherward, 
 
 With urge of his steed to the topmost leap 
 
 Till it was reined-in at the shore, 
 
 And the rider sprang down at the plank 
 
 To cross it to the boat. 
 
 "What news, my lad?" cried Lincoln, 
 
 Eager to know the solid fact, 
 
 Yet also to verify his dream. 
 
 The rebels sneaked on our picket line, 
 
 Attacked Fort Stedman still in the twilight ; 
 
 They hold it now, through a cunning ruse, 
 
THE LAST SEE-SAW. 31 
 
 But we shall settle with them yet. 
 
 So piped up the boyish messenger, 
 
 Sagging in word and act himself 
 
 To the battle s teter of uncertainty, 
 
 While Lincoln s visage re-told the torture 
 
 Responsive to his tongue: 
 
 1 1 Great God ! tis another bloody see-saw 
 
 Upon the Fatal Line of North and South 
 
 Which the spectral Presence once gloomily drew 
 
 Between myself and Dame Virginia, 
 
 When both of us stood face to face 
 
 In mutual dare at the White-House, 
 
 Glaring athwart the red-lit bound 
 
 Which then kept us atwain and the Nation too, 
 
 And still is holding us sundered, 
 
 Though I have arrived just to cross it here, 
 
 And to stanch the ever-upgurgling wound 
 
 Of the whole People incorporate. 
 
 And this is my reception ! 
 
 Before my eyes ghoulish Fate draws again 
 
 Its grave-yard line of demarcation, 
 
 Repeated an hundred hundred fold 
 
 Through all these sanguinary years. 
 
 What does the omen mean ? Must I turn back 
 
 And leave the Nation rent forever ? 
 
 Thus Lincoln oracled his destiny 
 Once more in secret tribulation, 
 
32 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Aghast at his crimsoned quadrennium. 
 
 The blue-bloused boy trotted off upset 
 
 By something he did not understand, 
 
 But Lincoln s heart still roared in repercussion 
 
 Which broke out into wailful words : 
 
 "Alas! it tallies with my combat s dream 
 
 Which plagued me the foreshow of the coming curse. 
 
 It haunts me now like the serpent 
 
 Which is this Hell s living counterpart, 
 
 Blackening sleep to a Stygian gloom 
 
 Which chokes my peace by day and night 
 
 Till my brain turns to an infernal orgy 
 
 Grimacing demonic imagery, 
 
 And my bat-winged soul-born Melancholy 
 
 Sucks far deeper than my blood 
 
 It drains me of my hope 
 
 Down to the dregs." 
 
 So smote him in trip-hammering back-stroke 
 
 His despair down-crushing all uplift, 
 
 Till he whirled off into himself 
 
 For suffering solitary, 
 
 Seeking to keep his wrestle lone 
 
 In his infinite sea of agony, 
 
 The living exemplar of his country s pain. 
 
 Then from his sorrow s perspiration 
 
 He looked upward as if for help 
 
 In Gethsemane s anguish. 
 
THE LAST SEE-SAW. 33 
 
 See ! an officer smiling approaches, 
 
 With, a message from General Grant 
 
 To report the battle s outcome 
 
 His eyes twinkling good news : 
 
 "We have repelled the cunning assault, 
 
 The fortress too re-capturing, 
 
 Driven the foe aback in retreat, 
 
 Beyond his former ramparts of cannon 
 
 Which we now hold, re-taking ours 
 
 And some of his not all." 
 
 "But is he still embattled against us? 7 
 
 "He is, and stubbornly holds his ground." 
 
 And why not fracture that line so fixed ? 
 
 Must it be ever restored intact, 
 
 Impassable as before ? asked Lincoln 
 
 With a droop in his voice with his body. 
 
 That is now the dear hope of our army, 
 
 Politely bowed the officer, 
 
 Giving that single glimpse of his own heart s world 
 
 Then Shutting it off into silence, 
 
 With a parting salute to the President, 
 
 Who slumped down piecemeal into his chair, 
 
 Thus lipping his sorrow s revery: 
 
 "Again before me reddens my vision 
 
 Dipped in the ensanguined bound 
 
 Unbroken still, renewed to wholeness! 
 
 I had longed to cross it here at last 
 
 Without the shedding of a drop of blood. 
 
34 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 But no ! Virginia leading the South 
 
 Grapples afresh our blue-coated cordon 
 
 That kept tightening around her Capital, 
 
 And with a frenzy gushed from her crisis 
 
 To save the Fatal Line of division 
 
 She deepens it anew on this spot 
 
 Where has been builded her final bulwark, 
 
 Which I had hoped to pass through to-day 
 
 On peaceful horseback; 
 
 But still the war s red-cleft boundary 
 
 Is re-affirmed to my very person 
 
 And is flouted before me 
 
 In fresh defiance. 
 
 That is what my vanishing gloom revives 
 
 And wings again my inner Vampyre, 
 
 To be my soul-thirsty demon 
 
 Out of whose secret nagging Hell 
 
 I had dared to ween me escaping, 
 
 Whereby a new living delight streamed o er me. } 
 
 Just then the higher Presence of himself 
 Slid into the air and stood before him 
 With its impress prophetic : 
 
 II Think this the expiring outward kick 
 Last of the monstrous megatherium, 
 Whose ancient period is up ; 
 
 It will assail no more, 
 
 Though still fighting at bay in its dying defense. 
 
THE LAST SEE-8AW. 35 
 
 Hearten thee now, my President, 
 
 Thy part to fulfil in this conclusion, 
 
 The loftiest yet of any leader of men. 
 
 Lincoln pulled up his lax limbs, pacing the deck 
 
 In overflow fresh of his black mood, 
 
 But soon he was risen into his genius 
 
 To fend off the deluge of gloom, 
 
 And spoke the forecast born of his upper self : 
 
 "Be this the last see-saw of bloody Fate 
 
 Which so often has cross-cut my very heart, 
 
 Until I felt it ripped in twain ! 
 
 Up! separation is now to vanish, 
 
 And the one Nation rises re-born, 
 
 I shall not leave here before the fulfilment ; 
 
 That is the biddance of all the Powers 
 
 And Presences sharing their Will within me; 
 
 To Washington I shall not return 
 
 Till asunder yon Fatal Line be smitten 
 
 At its last joint of resistance 
 
 And I be borne through the rift 
 
 But here comes Grant/ 
 
II. 
 Lincoln and Grant. 
 
 Grant. 
 
 Mr. President, welcome to my headquarters on 
 the James. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 I am keen to see you, General. But I have been 
 already saluted in right military style by the enemy 
 with unexpected shocks of courtesy. Even before 
 I was awake, I heard his salvos of artillery in my 
 honor, I suppose, at least so they were interpreted 
 by my dream. Then the festive cannonade was an 
 swered by our own side with even louder exuber 
 ance. So you have baptized me already with fire. 
 
 Grant. 
 
 Let me say that the battle which has celebrated 
 your arrival was not down on my programme of 
 
 (36) 
 
LINCOLN AND GRANT. 37 
 
 reception. It started from the foe s own sense of 
 civility. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Indeed! The Southron has always taken pride 
 in his chivalry toward his antagonist, but I do not 
 feel certain that this is a right sample. At any rate 
 its reverberation stirred up in my dream-life a hor 
 rible phantasm with which I had a personal encoun 
 ter, whose echoes still crawl over me in goose-flesh 
 shudders. General, do you ever have a vision or a 
 presage of some great event coming on, for instance 
 before the capture of Vicksburg? 
 
 Grant. 
 
 I am not much addicted to that sort of thing. 
 But this battle is over for the present, and both 
 sides are again standing face to face, though our 
 front is considerably advanced. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Yes, I have already noticed the fact: Another 
 see-saw greets me for my entertainment, as if I 
 needed some distraction of that kind, though I have 
 seen hardly anything else along this Atlantic coast 
 for four years. I sometimes think that in such 
 mutual exercise of the two armies I am the saw-log 
 ripped in twain both ways by the Lord s cross-cut 
 saw. 
 
38 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Grant. 
 
 We have all been disappointed, the enemy even 
 more than ourselves. But I hope and believe that 
 this attack is the last from yonder side. We are 
 now to take the offensive. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 That last word has the true ring. May your wish 
 and mine be fulfilled speedily ! But how often have 
 I been cajoled with such hopes before! Still for 
 ward to the fresh initiative which turns not back ! 
 
 Grant. 
 
 I have given orders already for the advance. So 
 I have invited you to witness a spectacle in which 
 I know your interest to be keyed up to its highest 
 pitch. I expect to break through the enemy s bat 
 tle-line in the next few days here at Petersburg, 
 and the breach, I think, will be never patched up 
 again. You can march with me across it, and in 
 deed take possession of it, uniting what is on the 
 other side of it with what is on this side, and there 
 by ending the great separation which has so long 
 rifted the whole land. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 That is what I have come down to see and to 
 take part in the final crossing of the Fatal Line 
 (so I call it in my way of speech), which I have 
 
LINCOLN AND GRANT. 39 
 
 hitherto so often willed to pass with the help of 
 this army, alas! to no purpose. Why? I have 
 often challenged Providence for an answer. What 
 a deluge of gory memories pours down upon this 
 little stretch of territory! Yonder I can see Har 
 rison s Landing, where I paid a visit to McClellan 
 and his soldiers after the Seven Days Fight some 
 twenty months since. I then beheld that Fatal 
 Line drawn between the two opposing armies, and 
 channeled as if it ran a river of blood from which 
 each of the contestants recoiled after many furious 
 charges and countercharges, all of which seemed 
 only to swell its crimson overflow and make it 
 deeper and more impassable. And that same result 
 I witnessed to-day again. Ever since the first 
 battle of Bull Run the sanguinary flood has kept 
 surging through its reeking stream-bed around and 
 between the two Capitals, Washington and Eich- 
 mond. ! General, I am heart-sick, coming hither 
 through the long city of hospitals. Can you not 
 soon put an end to this reign of Moloch gorgeing 
 still his human sacrifices and calling for more, 
 more, more the monster insatiable? 
 
 Grant. 
 
 Calm yourself, Mr. President ; one battle more at 
 least, a hard one doubtless, is in store for us ; that 
 I hope to be the last. You are aware that Sherman 
 is soon to be here, coming from North Carolina to 
 
40 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 consult with us about the future." You will also 
 meet Sheridan who has developed such an unusual 
 aggressive talent for fight in the last year. I can 
 not tell you how glad I am of his arrival in these 
 parts. I am in sore need of such a quick and hard 
 striker to drive dexterously this ponderous sledge 
 hammer of an army. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Pardon that outgush of my heart, which got the 
 better of my tongue. I know that we have to fight 
 on till the end which at present seems not far off. 
 The crown of my journey hither is to cross the 
 dividing boundary yonder. Till that be done, I 
 cannot return to Washington. Eagerly I shall lis 
 ten to Sherman whose army has continued to march 
 around the circle of victory till it has corralled the 
 whole rebellion except this recalcitrant fleck just 
 here before us. Of course you were the one who 
 started to snare the monster and crush him in that 
 mighty circuit of yours down the Mississippi io 
 Vicksburg and thence to Chattanooga. Sherman s 
 western soldiery, I suppose, will soon be marching 
 to this valley of the James, and thus close the last 
 gap in their vast triumphant round. They have 
 practically broken down the Fatal Line in ten of 
 the seceded States; now they are to help us give 
 the finishing blow to it here. 
 
LINCOLN AND GRANT. 41 
 
 Grant. 
 
 They ought not <to come yet. I have ordered 
 them to stay where they are and hold Johnson in 
 check. Indeed my judgment is that the Potomac 
 army can now do this piece of work by themselves ; 
 they should be permitted to test their new mettle 
 upon it, winning a great positive victory. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Well, that is a new plan of which I have not been 
 aware before. Such was not the design some days 
 ago. But are you sure you can fulfil the task 
 with them alone ? Recollect how often I have tried 
 to make this army perform just the act you speak 
 of. It is a problem which has wrenched from me 
 more thought and effort and anguish than all the 
 rest of the war combined. I confess to being sensi 
 tive about the result. Do you think you can trans 
 form these men, though of the bravest in death s 
 defiance, so as to be limit-breakers ? I never could, 
 nor their Generals; and alas! let me confess, I 
 never won this army s love. 
 
 Grant. 
 
 Well do I know your doubt and its foundation 
 in long and bitter experience. But my mind is 
 made up unless you countermand me. Hark, do 
 you hear that roll of distant cannon? 
 
42 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Distinctly. I hope it means that the end is be 
 ginning and will soon be at hand with no more 
 bloodshed. Here comes an officer riding at full 
 gallop. 
 
 Grant. 
 
 It is my adjutant bearing a message. I must be 
 off to the front. But I would request that you 
 think my plan over, before you revoke it or change 
 its main purpose. My heart is set upon it. I be 
 lieve your best thought will approve it at last. Soon 
 we shall see each other again. 
 
III. 
 
 Monologue. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 The President stood puzzling at the words 
 So counteractive of his purposes 
 The iron words of his first General, 
 "Whose will lie felt somehow should be his own ; 
 And so he sank down in his sea of thought, 
 Groping to find the reason underneath 
 The spare but pregnant utterance of Grant ; 
 So spake he to himself in confidence, 
 For when he would, he knew the mastery 
 Of deeper silence than the silent Grant, 
 While talking thus within to his own soul : 
 
 Such change of plan must needs be pondered well, 
 It runs contrarying my choicest hope 
 Which I have harbored secretly for years, 
 
 (43) 
 
44 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Deeming that Richmond never can be taken 
 
 But by the bound-surmounting- soldiery 
 
 "With spirit marching hither from the West, 
 
 Of which Grant is himself the best example. 
 
 Yet I have always found that his clear will 
 
 Rose from the very sources of events 
 
 With which in war he silently communes, 
 
 Tapping therefrom his deed direct in stroke, 
 
 Not needing roundabout reflection s turns. 
 
 Volition is the hero s utterance 
 
 So sudden that he knows it not himself. 
 
 But as for me I have in thought to prove 
 
 The undercurrent of the fresh design 
 
 Which he has hurtled on my dazed surprise. 
 
 But this he must confess now to himself : 
 
 He has not broken through the Fatal Line 
 
 Tlere in the East, though he was hither brought 
 
 Just for that goal from Western victories 
 
 Which championed him the coming limit-breaker. 
 
 I know he longs to seize the one chance left 
 
 That he retrieve his name, now in eclipse, 
 
 To first supremacy of generalship. 
 
 He feels himself outreached by Sherman s march 
 
 Which touched the people s fantasy 
 
 Like some romance of old adventure spun. 
 
 To Sheridan are loudly now acclaimed 
 
 Our only triumphs on Virginia s soil 
 
 Which bear in them the issue positive, 
 
LINCOLN S MONOLOGUE. 45 
 
 While Grant has not been able to cut through 
 
 The wall of fire between the Capitals, 
 
 However it may shift from place to place ; 
 
 Attacking he has been hurled back again 
 
 And yet again most bloodily, 
 
 From the dire carnage of the Wilderness 
 
 Till this which reddens in mine eyes to-day 
 
 Before the fortressed front of Petersburg, 
 
 Which I must now transcend or yield to fate. 
 
 The country is despairing of him quite 
 
 But I have not, for his I know the will 
 
 Of elemental force when it breaks forth 
 
 Sloughing the clouds which now obscure its sheen. 
 
 But that which troubles me most deeply still 
 
 Lies in this Eastern army s make of mind, 
 
 Whose limit inwardly seems charactered 
 
 By what I saw anew in yonder fight. 
 
 The troops are still McClellan s own in heart, 
 
 Their spirit s leader he commands them now; 
 
 Loyal they are, and ready to obey 
 
 Their General, but yet I have to doubt 
 
 If Grant has touched their throb of last affection 
 
 Evoking the full tide of soldiership ; 
 
 I know their love has not been won by me, 
 
 Though I have wooed it long and hope it yet 
 
 That overflow I mean of soul s devotion 
 
 Which will not put the bridle on its rush, 
 
 But flings itself in its own elemental fire, 
 
46 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Greeting a hearty welcome e en to death. 
 
 So I stand in a riddle doubting here 
 
 Which is the way to turn down to my deed ; 
 
 Is now this army ready to inflict 
 
 The final breach upon its foe s array ? 
 
 Can it transcend its act so oft repeated, 
 
 Erase the mark stamped on its very birth 
 
 And overcome itself to a new soul, 
 
 Which from its fated bound will not recoil ? 
 
 The enemy are weak to the last drop, 
 
 They have no more supplies of men and means, 
 
 Even of food they are reported scant 
 
 And each day thins them down by war s attrition ; 
 
 Their slain and wounded, their sick and captured, 
 
 Many deserting too, leave gaps unfilled, 
 
 While every loss with us is evened out 
 
 Upon the spot by one full-flowing stream 
 
 Of human brawn and fruits of husbandry 
 
 With flow of all munitions military 
 
 Poured hither from the unexhausted North. 
 
 Thus now it stands between the embattled fronts 
 
 Where still stays drawn the fatal boundary 
 
 Defiant of both sides, chiefly of ours, 
 
 And quick >to keep unscathed the separation 
 
 Which to undo I am, or die bedamned. 
 
 But mark ! when doubt dilemmas thus my mind 
 
 And life cris-crosses me in circumstance, 
 
 I have a way of getting out 
 
LINCOLN S MONOLOGUE. 47 
 
 Which, whirls my brain between opposing aims : 
 For I invoke the Upper Presences 
 Who voice the spirit of the turmoiled crisis 
 That twists the tangle of the time s collisions, 
 Who breathe me with their reconciling word 
 And make me listen to my higher call. 
 How strangely it has come about all this ! 
 At present seem they under my command, 
 While they at first were not by me controlled ; 
 But now my Self and their s conjoin in one, 
 We both have come to have a common mind, 
 E en if we still are twain, below, above; 
 The lower and the upper worlds are fused 
 Into a mutual universal will 
 Intercommunicating easily. 
 Those Presences go with me everywhere 
 Spaceless, timeless, the eye of All-in- All. 
 And so in my best moments I have dared 
 To think the boldest human thought as mine, 
 To harmonize the world s last dualism, 
 Re-bearing man s communion with his God 
 From whom he once was individuated. 
 But hold ! enough of this long prefacing 
 About the inner transits of my spirit 
 Listen! I hear the Presence now in mine 
 Speaking the speech of supereminence, 
 And printing on my brain the thought direct 
 Which me unriddles of my doubt two-sided, 
 And lets me glimpse the scope of Providence." 
 
48 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Thus Lincoln harked that high familiar, 
 
 Which had become his spirits intimate, 
 
 Imbreathing him God s power original 
 
 Whose seal of proof now took the form of words : 
 
 1 Thy chance is coming down this way, my Lincoln ! 
 
 To thee I shall f oresay what is to be : 
 
 This army too must breach the Fatal Line 
 
 And cross the same with thee at thine own Crossing 
 
 Ere it go home into its sea-bound States 
 
 Of which it is war s representative ! 
 
 It must partake of the one deed supreme 
 
 Which gleams the lofty goal of the whole contest, 
 
 And overwhelms both Fates, without, within, 
 
 For not the outer battle-line alone 
 
 It must now pass, but too the inner one 
 
 Which has been still its hardest obstacle 
 
 So cunningly intrenched within itself, 
 
 And stamped upon its very consciousness 
 
 This mark it must wipe out in victory. 
 
 Such is the act which thou, President, 
 
 Shalt now permit, yea force it if thou must, 
 
 So thou at last shalt pluck the topmost fruit 
 
 Grown of this Hell-tried Nation s discipline. 
 
 Long hast thou wrought to bring this deed to bloom 
 
 Through many Generals, the great and small, 
 
 With one result, defeat of hope itself, 
 
 As if thou sought to storm by human might 
 
 On Heaven s heights the walls of Destiny. 
 
LINCOLN S MONOLOGUE. 49 
 
 But now the hour is come let it not slip 
 
 To make thy work a whole and universal. 
 
 So is this army also unionized 
 
 When it performs the embattled deed of Union 
 
 And overcomes its dualed self at last, 
 
 Expunging both the lines of separation 
 
 At one full stroke, the inward and the outward. 
 
 Weigh well the words, my Lincoln, which I speak 
 
 From my supernal vision of the All. 
 
 The Nation will not rightly be restored 
 
 Unless this army share the final act 
 
 Undoing its defeats of hitherto, 
 
 Enfranchising itself of its own limit, 
 
 And on this Fatal Line unfating Fate 
 
 Which has it gripped till now fast in its clutch. " 
 
 The President stood poising on himself 
 
 With outlook far into his thought s Beyond, 
 
 As if he sighted the eternal Mind 
 
 Which would not be left out the coming deed ; 
 
 At last he rallied to the utterance : 
 
 How dare I try to win that final goal 
 
 Unless I summon Sherman s Westerners 
 
 Whose enterprise has been to break this bound, 
 
 Whose very soul it is to do just that, 
 
 As if they could not halt till that were done ? 
 
 Long have I tried I must make certain now, 
 
 When the last thunder-bolt burns in my hand." 
 
50 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 The Presence could not help but hear the thought, 
 
 While yet unworded it was being born, 
 
 And gave response which Lincoln had to feel 
 
 Deep down where lay his first creative Self : 
 
 I cannot blame thee for thy doubt erstwhile 
 
 Begotten Off thy many th war/ted hopes, 
 
 But now bethink thyself of the grand turn 
 
 Which has started yonder in the valley 
 
 Where growls the Shenandoah a.t the triumphs 
 
 Which Sheridan has st rewn along its stream 
 
 Erasing everywhere the Fatal Line 
 
 That it can be no longer there discerned. 
 
 Such is the deed which must be hither brought, 
 
 And re-enacted to its rounding-out 
 
 Here in the valley of the river James, 
 
 And with this deed its General must come, 
 
 In fact he is now coming of himself, 
 
 For he foref eels just what he is to do 
 
 And starts to take his place unique of task 
 
 Selected not by Grant or thee, but me, 
 
 As thy sure vehicle for breaching Fate. 
 
 Yes, I have made the choice of Sheridan 
 
 The only limit-breaker yet arisen 
 
 Here in the East, though he comes from the West ; 
 
 And let me tell a secret of mine own, 
 
 I shall myself march with him this campaign 
 
 And sti r his genius to its highest deeds, 
 
 Shivering the Fatal Line at every joint 
 
LINCOLN S MONOLOGUE. 51 
 
 Till it be yielded at the last surrender. 
 
 He is already nearing to this spot, 
 
 Not many hours will pass ere he arrives 
 
 Mark how the spirit of the time wo rks through him ! 
 
 The Presence ceased the impress of itself, 
 
 While Lincoln pondered on its message : 
 
 " So we must bring this army to the dare 
 
 Which rises to the final victory, 
 
 No more repelling merely the attack, 
 
 It must itself break through the long-fixed limit 
 
 Which is the enemy s, yet too its own, 
 
 A double liberation thus it wins. 
 
 And this will be Grant s own recovery, 
 
 Will purge his sun of all eclipse again 
 
 Till it burns brighter than it did at Vicksburg. 
 
 But that which sends through me the deepest thrill, 
 
 Is now that both our armies of themselves, 
 
 The Eastern and the Western, do one deed, 
 
 The common outbreak of one Nation s soul, 
 
 And so are unified in Victory, 
 
 Performing in themselves the act of Union 
 
 Which is their equal triumph o er the Fatal Line, 
 
 And mastery of the primal separation. 
 
 Lincoln fell silent for he felt again 
 The Presence stirring in his deepest thought 
 And wafting words of weal all through his heart : 
 "And yet another promise I foreshow 
 
52 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Thou art to win just then this army s love 
 So long by thee desired, so long withheld, 
 When it shall likewise cross the Fatal Line ; 
 With thee, through thee, and share the laureled 
 
 goal." 
 
 Thus Lincoln mused the conquest ultimate, 
 And felt within himself the vast relief 
 From right thing done in the right way, 
 The restoration of the Union won 
 Internally as well as from without. 
 Nor could he hold hid in his throbbing brain 
 The uplift of this new experience 
 Of his communion with his Tippet World : 
 1 Those Presences have hither followed me 
 Spaceless, timeless, the eye of All-in- All 
 Who gleams me the eternal Yea of things 
 Through the dark diabolic works of Nay, 
 Which clouds and clogs the day s swift history ; 
 They seem to be of mine own retinue, 
 Or else I have become one of themselves 
 So personal is now our intimacy. 
 They promise me the love I must have known, 
 This army s love and with it victory. 
 But stop ! down to the earth again, my soul ! 
 I must a message send to Grant at once, 
 Giving consent and strongest urgency." 
 
IV. 
 
 Monologue. 
 
 Grant. 
 
 So Lincoln accepts my plan, not only permitting 
 it, but pressing it upon me with enthusiasm, though 
 at first he hesitated not a little. I think it is right 
 in itself; but I confess to liking it the better be 
 cause it gives me my new opportunity, to which I 
 have now the first claim. Sherman is aching to 
 get here, that he may take part in this last round, 
 but I shall not permit him, being backed so em 
 phatically now by the President. Those Western 
 ers I know them well if they once get on the 
 ground, will sail in and claim everything. Besides 
 I feel that Sherman out-tops me since his truly 
 great march, and I must rise again to my old level. 
 I know him ambitious ; well, so am I, and it is not 
 a bad thing in either of us. He wants Sheridan, 
 
 (53) 
 
54 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 but I cannot permit that. Little Phil is the new 
 military phenomenon, he is the very genius of 
 initiative, of which he has a greater amount than 
 any other soldier in this army. Without Sheridan 
 I cannot break the hostile front, I have tried it ; so 
 I must have a man who dares the offensive, and 
 whose gift transcends mere defense. Between us 
 two, he at one end and I at the other, he wielding 
 the trip-hammer, and I furnishing the power, we 
 can infuse this army with the spirit of victorious 
 assault. He will transfer his Shenandoah success 
 hitherwards to the James just what must now be 
 done. I have no general here for such a work, I 
 doubt if such a leader could develop in this at 
 mosphere. Still my honor is involved, and I must 
 bring these devoted soldiers, whom I have now 
 commanded for many months, to win thedr share 
 in a great positive act of the war. Sheridan is the 
 man, he rides the irresistible whirlwind of battle, 
 having the power to turn us into the same sort of 
 whirlwind ; he must fetch along his cavalry which 
 envelops him like a tornado; but chiefly he must 
 fetch himself. 
 
V. 
 
 Lincoln and Lamon. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 What, Lamon ! You here too, my overhand 
 Upraised above me like a Providence ! 
 So you have slipped out hither to my help ; 
 Welcome, I catch relief to see your face. 
 You are the unexpected in itself 
 And bring the unexpected with you ever. 
 What news ? 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 The cannon you heard speaking not long since 
 Have told the news to you instead of me ; 
 The rebels knew about your visit here 
 Through hidden channels out of Washington, 
 And took the chance of seeing you in person, 
 I think they gladly would have entertained you. 
 
 (55) 
 
56 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Well, they have failed in that, and have gone back, 
 I hear, to their old station on the line. 
 Next I shall take my turn to visit them, 
 I have the hope to do it graciously. 
 But tell me how it is that you are here ? 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 I saw you in the distance leave the wharf, 
 "When you cut loose from worried Washington 
 For a brief outing with your family 
 Upon this little boat, and steamed away 
 To snuff the ocean s brine and boundlessness, 
 And to inspect the army on the James, 
 Perchance to cross the Line as yet uncrossed 
 And be a witness of rebellion s final scene. 
 You saw me not, but going to my office 
 I found fresh tracks of the assassin s plot, 
 When I resolved to follow you at once ; 
 So here I am your other self on guard, 
 For Lincoln somehow sleeps on Lincoln s post. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Heigh ho ! the hundredth new conspiracy ! 
 But never mind, the very man you are 
 Whom I was praying for in secret soul ; 
 I thought of sending you my wish to come, 
 Not to keep watch over my body here 
 Against some danger which may stalk about, 
 
LINCOLN AND LAMON. 57 
 
 But to be still my spirit s confidant 
 
 In its communion with my self s last task, 
 
 Where I most need a friend remedial 
 
 Such as I have you proven oft before. 
 
 The war s surcease seems turning into view, 
 
 And I must place myself just at the turn. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 A haunting intimation of the sort 
 I too have dreamed through all my toils ; 
 The bloody line of battle s demarcation 
 Which we have witnessed graved upon the soil 
 Year after year in many combats furious, 
 Seems on the point of giving way to us 
 And vanishing forever from the Nation. 
 But note, a peril new dawns with the triumph, 
 And that is wha,t my duty bids forestall; 
 When the first Fate, the National, is met, 
 There threats the second one, the personal 
 The doom which you have often prophesied, 
 As laid upon you from nativity : 
 That is the fatal line which I must break, 
 And catch the hand before the blow may fall. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Two Lamons came with me to Washington, 
 And both are standing in my presence now, 
 The one is guardian of my mortal frame, 
 The other is the curer of my soul 
 
58 LINCOLN AT RICHMONDPART FIRST. 
 
 When it is broken by the gloom of life. 
 
 The marshal and the mediator both you are, 
 
 The double office of your double power 
 
 Is consecrated to my double safety ; 
 
 The second function is for me the best, 
 
 Which medicines to me a healing balm, 
 
 Else I were torn to death in this rent time. 
 
 My real assassin is my melancholy 
 
 Which you have skill to ban with friendship sword ; 
 
 I would have perished in my task ere this 
 
 But for your subtle soothing sympathy, 
 
 Which has the chemic glow to solve my gloom, 
 
 When it drags nighting me to Erebos. 
 
 It seems to me the cloud begins to lift 
 
 Already in the bounty of your presence. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 You speak the dearest comfort of my days, 
 But hear the counterpart of what you say : 
 There are two Lincolns in this mighty work ; 
 The one I recognize Time s chosen man 
 To do the turning deed of History, 
 And voice the universal Spirit s hest 
 Unto his people and futurity. 
 The other is >the Lincoln of mortality, 
 The passing moment s individual ; 
 This latter is the human prey of Fate 
 Whose thrust untimely I have to prevent 
 
LINCOLN AND LAMON. 59 
 
 But with your help alone it can be done, 
 For Lincoln great is in one volume bound 
 With Lincoln small, fixed to a span of Time 
 And thus exposed to what may darkly lurk 
 In the next moment creeping up in stealth. 
 Still I confess surprise that you appear 
 More free of that dread inner foe of yours, 
 The sneaking night-born vampyre of your soul. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 I also took that note about myself 
 While tumbling "hither on the frolic boat, 
 And wondered at my blithesomeness unforced. 
 More strange it seemed that Douglas made the trip, 
 And in my thought he stayed a presence there, 
 Eecalling oft our final interview 
 Before I issued the first Proclamation. 
 He still is haunting me with sudden shifts 
 Coming and going in fleet visioned shapes ; 
 He shows to me his spectral sympathy 
 And keeps on doing his last deed beyond ; 
 More welcome is he now than in his life, 
 Somehow I like him better as a g host 
 Than I could ever as a living man. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 I think I may guess well the reason why : 
 He stood with you at the beginning then, 
 And now he comes foreshadowing the close, 
 
60 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 At which, he too will be again on hand. 
 True patriot Douglas, bless him ! You and I 
 Did not appreciate his noble soul 
 Till he had passed beyond, and had performed 
 The highest service to his country s cause. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Only too true, my Lamon, is your word, 
 And I confess I feel a self-reproach 
 For my neglect to blazon his great deed. 
 But if I live I shall make good my fault. 
 Nor was this precious image of our Douglas 
 The only one that flitted to my view; 
 A company of spirits was aboard 
 Besides my wife and other living people ; 
 The Lord of all the spritely presences 
 Who have been inmates of the White-House with me 
 Since I first came to dwell in Washington, 
 As I have often told you secretly, 
 Appeared (to step when I did on the deck, 
 Remaining at my side the entire way. 
 Or rather let me say the strangest truth, 
 We were somehow a One inseparate, 
 Fixed to a singleness of intellect, 
 Two persons, but one personality, 
 And I was in control of both of us. 
 How great /the difference from former days 
 When I was ruled by these same Presences 
 
LINCOLN AND LAMON. 61 
 
 Obeying them whenever they might come 
 
 And breathe me wordless impress of their will ! 
 
 Still they appear and give command supernal, 
 
 But that command is mine and I am they. 
 
 Then they would fly down from some other realm 
 
 I knew not whence, yet it was off outside ; 
 
 But now I feel them mine, though still supreme 
 
 They be with all their primal sovereignty. 
 
 That one great Lord of all the Presences 
 
 The ruler of the Upper "World for me, 
 
 Director of events of History, 
 
 Became so strangely twinned with this my Self 
 
 That I felt mine the voice of what he would ; 
 
 The change environs me with a new order, 
 
 I have gone over to another life, 
 
 Which still is the right essence of myself. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 Friend, I have noted something of the sort 
 Already in you ; thus I do construe it : 
 The spirit of the age you have become 
 Incorporate, the mightiest events 
 Have nursed you till you equal them, 
 And now you have upgrown as great as they, 
 And level with the top of History; 
 Your selfhood bears the universal Self, 
 Which you have won to be your very own 
 And which upon you seals eternity. 
 
62 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 But mark ! still you are only here and now, 
 A single atom, this mere Abraham Lincoln, 
 The fated one down here, the fateless there, 
 The melancholy heart and the uplifted, 
 The strong compeller of your destiny, 
 And yet compelled by it in the same breath, 
 Immortal, yet mortality s free sport ; 
 Let jealous chance cast not thy lot of life, 
 Passion s wild blow I may forestall, not Fate s. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 So you philosophize me to my depths : 
 Two Lincolns then you see me standing here, 
 Endowed to be a double personage. 
 Two Lamons also I may mark again 
 Repaying you with like duplicity ; 
 Guard you the outer Lincoln as you may, 
 To me your deeper office is to "be 
 My soul s confessor and restorer true. 
 So I another semblance must confide you : 
 Ann Rutledge often came to me adream, 
 Would make a fuller stay in happy hope, 
 To share this journey with me she seemed longing; 
 And once by day she flitted out the air 
 As I lay couching in my revery 
 And fondling all her living memories. 
 She did what I had never seen her do 
 In all iher ghostly intimacy with me 
 
LINCOLN AND LAMON. 
 
 She waved me with her hand to go along, 
 Whereas before she motioned me to stay, 
 Then turned and fled into her sightless realm. 
 I leaped up to my feet and shouted Ann! 
 Then took a double stride to follow after, 
 But oh, my wedded wife, my Mary dear, 
 Heard me and knew whom I was calling to 
 For she had overlistened to my dreams 
 In times gone by, whereat there rose a storm 
 Of jealousy for which I cannot blame her. 
 Lamon ! here my double self I feel 
 At its intensest point of tragedy, 
 Two Lincolns in my heart I do cognize 
 Two loves are mine enthroned yet opposite, 
 Immortal is the one, but mortal is the other, 
 This bids me here obey its duty stern 
 That woos me there with all the love of love 
 Till I would flee to it out of my life, 
 And heal my rifted soul of melancholy 
 Through cure of that one best physician Death, 
 Of whom as God I oft beseech release. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 friend, let me hold up thy highest hope 
 Now at the point of its accomplishment, 
 After these year-long cycles of despair 
 Bethink thy People s grateful heart outpoured 
 In choosing thee their President again. 
 
64 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 And I have come to notice something else: 
 All Peoples of the Earth begin to turn 
 Their look affectionate on thy career 
 As if it too somehow belonged to them, 
 And showed the model of their larger life, 
 Which they must shape to be their future s own 
 With gleam from thee of universal love. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 And still at home I have not won my hope 
 Until this army s heart-beat thrills with mine, 
 Which dt has never brought itself to do. 
 Lamon, its lack of love is stabbing me, 
 Still I must try once more to touch its heart, 
 As now my Upper Presence gives me promise, 
 And breathes me strength to make the final test. 
 But next I have to meet my Generals, 
 The three superlatives of soldiership 
 Wherein again there rises a new quest. 
 Farewell Lamon speak me again at Richmond. 
 
VI. 
 Grant, Sherman, Sheridan. 
 
 Three names spoken one after the other 
 
 Seem skyward to rise a sonorous pyramid 
 
 In colossal grandeur 
 
 Broad base, upflying middle, outtopping point, 
 
 Grant, Sherman, Sheridan 
 
 Whose very syllables mounting 
 
 Climb up to the apex, 
 
 As if to round out a symphony 
 
 Monumental of name and deed, 
 
 Which plays the war s whole movement 
 
 From start to end. 
 
 Trine they appear and yet one as well 
 
 Mysterious three-oneness 
 
 Which stirs ever to action 
 
 Man s deepest consciousness 
 
 Bearing the seal of his Self and the All. 
 
 (65) 
 
66 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 The trinity highest of generalship 
 
 Lincoln is now to see, 
 
 Yea to grapple with as the appearance 
 
 Incarnate of war s own soul 
 
 Rising aloft on the side of Union. 
 
 The three commanders pyramidal, 
 
 Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, 
 
 Sifted out of a hundred battle-fields, 
 
 Will be aligned together along the James 
 
 To meet the President, 
 
 And test him all of his worth, 
 
 In one culminant military group, 
 
 Before striking the uttermost blow. 
 
 Four years of the hottest churning volcanic 
 
 Of elemental human passions, 
 
 And also of talents, 
 
 Have thrown them up to the surface, 
 
 Overtowering all the turmoil 
 
 In their personal magnitude. 
 
 Of the blue-coated millions twain and more 
 
 They are the three triumphant heroes 
 
 Uplifted by red war s selection 
 
 Over many thousand miles 
 
 But now all three converging to a single point, 
 
 Which is Lincoln at the Crossing, 
 
 On the way to Richmond s Capitol. 
 
 The time was a universal smithy 
 Forging Titanic personalities, 
 
GRANT, SHERMAN, SHERIDAN. 57 
 
 Each of which was vastly itself 
 
 Yet fitted in its place 
 
 To work the mighty machinery 
 
 Of violence so finely organized. 
 
 Supereminent is Grant, 
 
 The silent sledge-like military Will 
 
 Of ponderous stroke, 
 
 Pitiless for its goal, 
 
 Yet generous when this is won. 
 
 But Sherman had a tonguey turn 
 
 And would let out red-hot his mind 
 
 In passionate jets of exuberance ; 
 
 Adventuresome, imaginative, 
 
 Filled with knight-errantry practical, 
 
 Turning big dreams to big deeds, 
 
 Topping the war s grand romance 
 
 With a real march to the sea. 
 
 At last steps up quick Sheridan, 
 
 Fondled in name as little Phil 
 
 By all his happy soldiery ; 
 
 But the right War God he is now become 
 
 Bringing with him the whirlwind rush 
 
 Of very victory ; 
 
 He strides the Genius of red battle 
 
 Conscious of his greatest call 
 
 To break the Fatal Line. 
 
 Though charactered with much difference 
 They form a unit rounded and whole 
 
68 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 In complement made of one another, 
 
 Constituents are they all of an integer 
 
 Above themselves active, 
 
 Yet of themselves also, 
 
 Making together one great Superman 
 
 Of Spirit military. 
 
 All three are friends co-operant 
 
 To the single end of the "War, 
 
 Unrifted by jealousy 
 
 But bonded in rivalry, 
 
 Each not striving to thwart 
 
 But to outdo the other s worth by greater, 
 
 And to overmatch his rival 
 
 By helping him all the more. 
 
 Thus each was a whole leader of men 
 
 If taken by himself, 
 
 Yet part of a still higher leadership 
 
 Uniting him with the other two, 
 
 And throning one overlord supreme of mind 
 
 In sovereignty unconscious 
 
 Above these generals, 
 
 Yet common to them all. 
 
 Such is the spirit new of dominion 
 
 Which Lincoln has to face 
 
 In friendship deep, but deeper opposition 
 
 At the start, till overcome 
 
 Just by his own supremacy. 
 
GRANT, SHERMAN, SHERIDAN. 69 
 
 He saw the mighty semblance approaching 
 
 Of that Superman of War, 
 
 Who rose to shape from human coalescence 
 
 Triple-featured, though single-brained, 
 
 Whom he must keep in topmost native strength, 
 
 Yet subordinate unto himself 
 
 As the Law s own generalissimo. 
 
 He knew all three meant fealty, 
 
 And willed what he might will, 
 
 Aye, bore love to him in heart s intention 
 
 As far as heart could see itself. 
 
 But still he feared the upshot 
 
 Of the unconscious Self of their s, 
 
 The fountain primal of their nature 
 
 Welling up in bent and in vocation. 
 
 And so he queries within himself : 
 
 "What a miracle of grand appearances! 
 
 Gigantic personalities all three! 
 
 Yet they envisage me as one ghostly Power, 
 
 With its soldierly will ail-too absolute, 
 
 Which I must gently circumscribe 
 
 And to mine own will subsume 
 
 As that of civil rule. 
 
 Dare I meet the challenge unspoken, 
 
 Whose stake turns on the last authority 
 
 Now centered in me, of State? 
 
 Estrange them I must not 
 
70 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Nor hamper the thrust of their genius, 
 
 But rather spur them on to their fullest deed, 
 
 To which they are now marching. 
 
 And yet the perilous backstroke I must watch 
 
 Lest Liberty be herself thence jeoparded, 
 
 And we lose the very goal 
 
 For which this monster s Titanic energy 
 
 Has been by us evoked and harnessed. 
 
 Three human individuals, 
 
 Each gifted with elemental grandeur 
 
 Upbursting heavenward in native strength, 
 
 Like the mountainous soar of summits Himalayan 
 
 Out of the huge protoplasmic mass 
 
 Which is called the Folk, 
 
 Ocean as yet unsounded of depths, 
 
 And unbounded in its far outlooks, 
 
 Still source of existences unevolved, 
 
 Dark well-head of unsolved enigmas 
 
 Here are three of them right before me, 
 
 Each like the colossal sphinx of old Egypt, 
 
 Upright with mien of Nature s own secrecy 
 
 Which they themselves wot not, 
 
 But which tis mine to unriddle, 
 
 Or die undone." 
 
 Thus Lincoln his task would fantasy 
 To shapes supersensed of his soul, 
 Ideal, yet the time s true reality 
 
GRANT, SHERMAN, SHERIDAN. 71 
 
 Whose impress he could not help but fashion, 
 
 So he goes on unfolding his vision : 
 
 "Three human forms of the common mould, 
 
 Quite like myself 
 
 And yet strangely they interfuse 
 
 And blend into one superhuman semblance 
 
 Distinctive from me. 
 
 In full uniform tokening Captaincy 
 
 With sword outdrawn and eyeing me 
 
 As if to make trial now of my office, 
 
 Testing my right of supremacy 
 
 The phantasm wafts me its utterance 
 
 Which peals to me inwardly 
 
 In rolls of thunder : 
 
 I am the War God s very Self 
 
 Fabled elsewhere of old as Mars or Odin, 
 
 Born of the blazing Hell of battle ; 
 
 I am the soul of all souls military, 
 
 Aye of thy whole army s millions, 
 
 But chiefly of these three Generals highest 
 
 I rise the one oversoul 
 
 Unconscious to them all, 
 
 Perchance disowned as well, 
 
 And yet their very selfhood s being, 
 
 I know myself to be, 
 
 Sprung of their daily habit and deed. 
 
 To thee who art the President 
 
 I now appear in panoply, 
 
72 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 And I proclaim me in power 
 Thy Super-President! " 
 
 The word was scarcely out of the spectral lips 
 
 When Lincoln sprang up to the test, 
 
 With challenge hurled at the monster: 
 
 1 Come on, even to the death of me ! 
 
 Though thou be the God of War 
 
 Immortal against me mortal, 
 
 Testing the human in conflict 
 
 Even with Deity 
 
 As I once read on antique poet s pages; 
 
 I, like the old Greek, shall engage thee, 
 
 I, the man in a war with the War-God, 
 
 Or perchance with the Devil himself, 
 
 Shall send thee howling off the field 
 
 With myriad-throated boohoo ! 
 
 So hooted the President his hottest of wrath 
 
 In defiance of that usurping Semblance, 
 
 For it had stirred up his topmost daring 
 
 To war down War s very warrior, 
 
 Who menaced his rule and the Law s 
 
 With its weaponed audacity. 
 
 But see him smoothing his facial battle, 
 E en rippling a smile through its corrugations, 
 As he was ware of a different Presence 
 Which slowly transmuted the other, 
 
GRANT, SHERMAN, SHERIDAN. 73 
 
 And speechless gave impress of speech : 
 
 "Hold, Lincoln, hold! 
 
 Strike not, cripple not 
 
 The Power transcendent, for it is thine, 
 
 Thou hast evoked it thyself 
 
 By thy personal magic 
 
 To do the final deed of war s undoing ! 
 
 Here are the leaders all three 
 
 Yet welded one in their martial spirit, 
 
 Who soon will breach the rampart of Fate, 
 
 Which has thee defied so long and defeated. 
 
 Then follows thy greater task 
 
 To conquer the conquerers 
 
 And to put under law supreme 
 
 Victorious violence summoned to strike 
 
 Unto thine end and mine 
 
 For I am History s inner artificer. 
 
 Here it rears up before thy eyes, 
 
 Of Generals highest the Over-General, 
 
 Tis thine to subdue its loftiness 
 
 And be thyself the greatest soldier 
 
 Of all thy great soldiery." 
 
 The Presence whispered in softer strain, 
 
 Though with might of a God s persuasion : 
 
 "But first uplift the great three to their task, 
 
 To the last push of their genius, 
 
 By thy oceanic sympathy, 
 
 Then keep them all in control 
 
74 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Through thine own Personality vaster. 
 
 Remember that War, the autocratic, 
 
 Is their life and business, 
 
 Despotic of Will, 
 
 Absolute over the human deed aligned 
 
 To obedience military. 
 
 But thine it is to keep the brave soldier 
 
 As the means, not the end of best polity, 
 
 And thus conserving the boon 
 
 Of sacred liberty 
 
 E en from the counterstroke mortal 
 
 Which hitherto ever has fallen 
 
 From its own armed defence of itself. 
 
 So Lincoln stood weirdly communing 
 
 With his own innermost Self 
 
 And too with his Overself super-eminent, 
 
 In attunement divinely thrilled 
 
 To sway the new-born turn of the time. 
 
 Still his brain could not stop its beating 
 
 Unto the strange conjuncture 
 
 Which starts him to musing : 
 
 "It haps to me again 
 
 To mortise into harmony 
 
 Strong characters yet frankly repellant, 
 
 Antipathetic each of the other, 
 
 Best talents needful for the one cause, 
 
 But limited into their very excellence. 
 
GRANT, SHERMAN, SHERIDAN, 75 
 
 I have endured the tyrant Stanton 
 
 And put iron despotism in its place 
 
 For its stern work remorseless, 
 
 Though curbing it at times : 
 
 Such tearless duty 
 
 I am not fitted for. 
 
 Fault-finding Chase, ambitious of my office, 
 
 Despite himself recalcitrant 
 
 I kept, and made him part of the greater whole 
 
 Where he was indispensable. 
 
 I clung to Seward of service supreme, 
 
 Though tangled much in hostilities 
 
 With himself and his own party, 
 
 Utilizing him and his foes as well. 
 
 So now this trinity military, 
 
 Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, 
 
 I must keep entire for its worthiest work 
 
 Yet integrate it aright with myself 
 
 As its civil overlord. 
 
 And so I am resolved to this : 
 
 Here I shall stay and cross the Fatal Line, 
 
 With mine own personal presence cross it 
 
 As soon as it is broken, 
 
 And perchance pass onward to Richmond 
 
 With me bearing the whole United States, 
 
 Made whole again and new 
 
 In its rightful primacy." 
 
76 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 This last word he lipped with emphasis loud 
 
 Out of his tranced soliloquy, 
 
 Whereat half startled he dropped back 
 
 To a listening in his soul : 
 
 "But this must remain as my dearest secret, 
 
 The hidden work of my policy, 
 
 To make him, this military Superman, 
 
 Preserve through war and not destroy 
 
 For his are two antipodal talents, 
 
 He may undo what he has greatest done 
 
 But he shall not." 
 
 These four firmer words fell off Lincoln s tongue 
 
 Aloud in stressful affirmation, 
 
 In spite of his caution s padlocked lips 
 
 Which were unkeyed for the moment. 
 
 Then to his voiceless self he returned, 
 
 And tuned his throbbing brain to quietude 
 
 Brooding thoughts without speech : 
 
 "Laws are silent mid arms, 
 
 So the old saying runs, 
 
 But mine I feel as the larger hest, 
 
 Arms I must silence mid laws ; 
 
 Now I shall follow up victory, 
 
 With my rule political and its order. 
 
 This meeting with War s three greatest 
 
 Grant, Sherman, Sheridan 
 
 I see it the pivot ultimate 
 
 On which the right outcome is turning ; 
 
GRANT, SHERMAN, SHERIDAN. 77 
 
 So hence to this ordeal last of my worth, 
 But not the least." 
 
 Thus Lincoln has nerved himself afresh 
 
 To tensest spring of mind 
 
 That he may meet the test of encounter, 
 
 To which the moment has faced him, 
 
 With the new perilous shape engendered 
 
 E en by his own act to save the Nation. 
 
 And so he wot of the irony impish, 
 
 As if Satan sneered 
 
 Couching oft in man s highest deed, 
 
 And turning it to its own opposite, 
 
 Mid the mockery grim of all Hell s fiends, 
 
 Till the lurking demon be caught and throttled 
 
 And then be enforced to swallow 
 
 His own scoffing negation. 
 
VII. 
 
 The Triumph of Personality. 
 
 Rare was the kind of drill and to the point 
 
 Which Lincoln now imparted to his war-chiefs, 
 
 A super-military discipline 
 
 Enforced by his own genius personal 
 
 Over his three most military spirits. 
 
 The moment he appeared before them 
 
 Intoning his gentle speech transcendent, 
 
 They sensed the new supremacy 
 
 Which bade them all to their deepest service 
 
 And softened pride to willingness. 
 
 They felt the Person over each Person, 
 
 And over them all, 
 
 And gave unconscious fealty 
 
 To the highest Self of their own Selves, 
 
 Subordinating them to their best worth. 
 
 For which deed not hate but a fresh affection 
 
 (78) 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF PERSONALITY. 79 
 
 Bubbled up from their far-down sources human, 
 Recognizing him fellowed with what s above, 
 As God s participant. 
 
 So the meeting was held, 
 
 And each of the three put forth his best of himself, 
 
 Tokening mightiness military 
 
 In the turn of his word and look. 
 
 Gigantic individuals they, 
 
 Fate s chosen survivals, 
 
 Evolved by War s fierce selection ; 
 
 Triangular sat they about 
 
 The central Lincoln, 
 
 Signaling upbursts from their nature direct 
 
 Which upturned the soldier s last instincts 
 
 Lying in depths unseen of the soul, 
 
 Yet of man s action the fountain original, 
 
 Whose spontaneous play to the sunlight 
 
 Lincoln peered at with all concentration. 
 
 So different, still they were one 
 
 And fused together quite of themselves 
 
 Into a common consciousness 
 
 Which they glinted, yet hardly cognized. 
 
 But Lincoln well knew it of old, 
 
 Saw it rise in a kind of second sight 
 
 Which looked with the eyes of keen experience ; 
 
 Soon his thoughts began thinking over himself 
 
80 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIR8T. 
 
 When tried by the touchstone of failure 
 
 In the memoried past ; 
 
 Thus he hearkens to his own secrecy : 
 
 Once a monster begotten of large command 
 
 I saw rear up its body to snare me, 
 
 It was the double-headed prodigy 
 
 Which worried me so daringly 
 
 The fearful first year of my quadrennium. 
 
 But this new semblance is acting more hidden, 
 
 Surrounded it seems in a drifting fog-world, 
 
 As if it lay ensconced in dread depths of soul 
 
 Below self-knowledge of its possessor, 
 
 Where broods the nebulous birth of things 
 
 In the night of primal genesis. 
 
 Still I have caught the lay of that Power 
 
 Floating between two worlds, the seen and unseen, 
 
 In my vision inner and outer 
 
 Discerning it as my topmost adversary, 
 
 Yet too my co-worker indispensable, 
 
 Which I must nurse to still greater endeavor, 
 
 Yet must put under my rule 
 
 Making it serve me in spite of itself, 
 
 Overcoming it deftly to be my helper. 
 
 Such is my wrestle with the huge athlete 
 
 Double-natured, double-worlded, 
 
 Rebel new-born of the time s convulsion 
 
 To put down rebellion, 
 
 Titanic revolter against the law 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF PERSONALITY. 81 
 
 Who still must be turned to the law s support; 
 The destroyer possible shifted 
 Spell-bound into the real preserver ; 
 War s shadowy phantasm, 
 Yet gigantically real." 
 
 Thus the President hid the beat of his mind, 
 
 Still it would tell on itself 
 
 Gleamed from his personal genius 
 
 Through his tone, his gesture, his eye-shot, 
 
 And through the sheen of his presence whole, 
 
 While the trine of highest generalship 
 
 Held converse with him, the one Lincoln, 
 
 In flesh and blood of his human finitude ; 
 
 Both sides were there and chatted in by-play 
 
 Many a little joke and odd anecdote ; 
 
 But each was aware of something else 
 
 Overtowering all of their words, 
 
 Each caught an inner glimpse of himself 
 
 Communing with another world 
 
 Invisible but impressing the soul ; 
 
 For the Generals three supreme 
 
 Touched the Personality ruling 
 
 Each and all of them as a unit, 
 
 Voicing its sovereignty now through mortal lips ; 
 
 But Lincoln also visioned above his senses 
 
 The military spirit s semblance 
 
 Begotten huge of the warlike deeds 
 
82 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Of the time s greatest soldiery. 
 
 He pierced its heart with his poignant look, 
 
 The very lightning of fate, 
 
 Till it slid fading slowly away, 
 
 No longer a presence there. 
 
 Then Grant spake briefly up : 
 
 1 I have given order for a full, grand parade 
 
 This afternoon to honor our President ; 
 
 Him we three shall accompany thither 
 
 To serve as his retinue worthiest 
 
 Before the eyes of our soldiers enranked 
 
 He being the greatest soldier of all." 
 
 The Generals three then rode away, 
 
 Each staying alone meanwhile, 
 
 Having heard the order to meet again, 
 
 In presence of the grand army and Lincoln, 
 
 But more intently each caught up another voice, 
 
 As by himself he turned down his road ; 
 
 There came a whisper to him on the air 
 
 Laden with a message supernal, 
 
 Yet also thrilling out of his own depths : 
 
 "How Lincoln s sovereign Personality 
 
 Shadowed over all three of us, 
 
 Separate and together, 
 
 In that uppermost test of our spirits ! 
 
 Beshoiue by his presence of majesty 
 
 We felt ourselves but his instruments, 
 
 We became his, no longer our own ; 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF PERSONALITY. 83 
 
 Though we each held our position unique 
 
 In our own sphere of supreme generalship, 
 
 We found a still higher general, 
 
 To whom each one by himself, 
 
 And all three of us though united 
 
 In one soldier supernal, 
 
 Bowed as to our generalissimo; 
 
 That soldierly oversoul of ours he won, 
 
 And then he humbled it gracefully, 
 
 As if it were summoned down to implead 
 
 Before its highest tribunal. 
 
 Such was the discipline new 
 
 Which Lincoln imparted in that one drill 
 
 To his well-schooled disciplinarians 
 
 In camp upon the River James. 
 
 He was the triumph over the war triumphant, 
 
 The General over the greatest Generals, 
 
 Who have come now to know themselves 
 
 As but a part of what is the whole, 
 
 As but a means of what is the end. 
 
 No military dictator will now appear, 
 
 Such as hitherto oft has arisen ; 
 
 The very Will of War has found and adopted 
 
 The higher Will of itself 
 
 Through the school of Lincoln s Personality. 
 
 The moment called for the lesson taught 
 
 Within those tented quarters 
 
84 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 To mightiest of his soldiery, 
 
 By the President acting the time s schoolmaster, 
 
 Revealing a mightier selfhood 
 
 Than War s own overself violent 
 
 Prone to take captive the lordship of Law. 
 
 The President weary turns to his couch 
 
 To unbend the strain of his struggle 
 
 In revery s soothing composure; 
 
 But scarce had he shut down his eye-lids 
 
 When the Presence, his faithful familiar 
 
 Fleeted into his soul still ajar 
 
 Between a sleep and a dream 
 
 And speechless began the impress of speech. 
 
 "How strange was the conjunction! 
 
 Each of the three as simple single man 
 
 Was dutiful to thee, affectionate, 
 
 Yea vowed to the Law s supremacy; 
 
 Yet such was not the dread Superman 
 
 In whom each shared as part constitutive 
 
 By native bent of own character, 
 
 As well as by his life s activity. 
 
 The soldier is one long obedience 
 
 Which at the end may disobey; 
 
 The oath military so deeply sworn 
 
 Has often revealed the subtle turn 
 
 To forswear itself. 
 
 Not with the man but with this Superman, 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF PERSONALITY. 85 
 
 Lincoln, befell thy sinister duel, 
 
 Thou hadst to clinch him in mortal wrestle 
 
 As the real protagonist, 
 
 Never letting him get incorporate, 
 
 In one chieftain supreme, 
 
 Even while pushing him up to greatest deeds. 
 
 It was a double-sided contest, 
 
 And the victor had to win both sides 
 
 Or else be the loser and lost ; 
 
 For he had to fetter the very giant 
 
 Whom he had nursed to might and then loosed." 
 
 Here Lincoln leaped up adream 
 And groaned out in sympathy 
 With his own Superman vanquished, 
 His child begotten, yet by him cast out. 
 Still more he compassioned his Generals, 
 Whose highest self he seemed to undo ; 
 But the Presence bade him composure, 
 Breathing again the influx supernal, 
 Wordless himself but instilling these words : 
 "Repeat the thought till it be understood, 
 sorrow-shent Lincoln! 
 As individuals they to thee were not hostile, 
 These first Captains, but loved the President, 
 Nor ambitious of thy place or power, 
 As far as they could know themselves ; 
 Still an unconscious life was also theirs 
 
86 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 The drill of habit and vocation, 
 
 "Which had to be reckoned with just now 
 
 For the crisis is here. 
 
 The sunless realm underneath the human day 
 
 Of self-cognition and known intention 
 
 Has to be summoned up to the light 
 
 Before the judgment-seat of law supreme, 
 
 Lest that dark underworld of might and violence 
 
 Break its restraint, and then pour forth 
 
 Over the land in eruptive overflow 
 
 Its chaos stored up by the aeons. 
 
 So History oft has exampled it; 
 
 But now she can tell another tale 
 
 Lincoln, of thy epochal deed, 
 
 How thou didst win thy greatest triumph 
 
 Of sheer Personality 
 
 Over War s monstrous Superman 
 
 Hitherto unconquerable. 
 
 So messaged the Presence and faded 
 
 As the thrilled Lincoln awoke 
 
 With its impress still throbbing through him 
 
 In every blood corpuscle. 
 
 The President could not help reflecting 
 
 Upon the overearthly encounter 
 
 Which he had dared to the outcome 
 
 With monster so mightily real, 
 
 Though he returned victorious. 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF PERSONALITY. 87 
 
 Plodding about his chamber he whispered 
 
 Unto his genius a congratulation: 
 
 "I confess my innermost mood uplifted 
 
 At the result of this new tournament, 
 
 Very different from that other kind 
 
 Which as a roistering youth I practiced 
 
 Against the giants of New Salem 
 
 In twisting tussle over the greensward, 
 
 Where I tumbled the township s hero. 
 
 This wrestler also I have flung down 
 
 Though supersensible. 
 
 No longer can he, though embodied visibly 
 
 In the time s greatest soldier, 
 
 Rise up absolute Will and seize the prize 
 
 For his own which he may have won 
 
 For the whole Nation 
 
 By his unheld right arm battling, 
 
 Which I still have to catch and hold, 
 
 Lest in its sweep it should strike the other way, 
 
 As its record so often has told 
 
 In Europe s History ; 
 
 No Caesar, no Cromwell, no Napoleon 
 
 Can be of this war now begotten 
 
 Though Europe prophesies them for us 
 
 In her word and too in her deed, 
 
 Because they truly are hers, 
 
 Born of the soul of her world, 
 
 But not of ours. 
 
88 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Still I have felt that same peril, 
 To lurk in War s acted irony, 
 And watched it from the start 
 Fearing its treacherous counterstroke, 
 Throttling it when it dared peep up 
 Here in the East, there in the West, 
 Hinting of military dictatorship. 
 But the Superman Titanic of War, 
 I fear him not henceforth, 
 For he cannot re-incarnate himself 
 In these United States, 
 Being not American 
 But otherwhere of consciousness." 
 
 Here Lincoln suddenly snapped meditation 
 
 As he looked down the roadway, 
 
 For he saw a blue uniform coming 
 
 Whose image he recognized ; 
 
 Shooting vocables quick with surprise, 
 
 He murmured into his soul : 
 
 "Dive down, thou audacious thought! 
 
 Sheathe thyself in my brain s scabbard, 
 
 Here comes my greatest General 
 
 To escort me to the proud pomp of parade 
 
 Where I may see the spectacle military, 
 
 But also scan the soldiery common 
 
 In which I always discern 
 
 Aught revealing myself or the People/ 
 
VIII. 
 Lincoln in. the Saddle. 
 
 One black loose habit with a high hat 
 
 Swimming in seas of boundless blue 
 
 Advances amid a wavy up and down 
 
 At the head of a bright cavalcade 
 
 Tossing with well-styled uniforms 
 
 Made after a given pattern, 
 
 Each like the other. 
 
 Just the one individual 
 
 Original among a hundred thousand atoms, 
 
 His dress bespeaks who he is in advance 
 
 And yet more his look 
 
 The very contrast to war s stiff pageantry 
 
 Well-drilled to the last pose. 
 
 He rides up the way as the Folk incarnate, 
 
 Carelessly slouching the outward ever 
 
 But stressful of the meaning of things, 
 
 And seeking the point creative. 
 
 (89) 
 
90 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Here he comes, our President ! 
 
 The soldiers were lipping it, through their lines 
 
 Enranked in pomp of War 
 
 With every button glistening, 
 
 While bayonet fixed on gun-barrel polished 
 
 Would stab the eye with strokes of sheen 
 
 In hands of many marching thousands. 
 
 And the swords of officers gleaming unsheathed, 
 
 Regiment after regiment 
 
 Would leap upward with starry sparkle 
 
 To salute good Father Abraham, 
 
 Who, long-legged, high-headed, 
 
 Eode to the front of his great Generals 
 
 In civilian s lopping suit 
 
 With easy lounging attitude 
 
 As if he would enact himself 
 
 One of his grotesque jokes of the Wild West, 
 
 Instead of telling it, as was his wont, 
 
 In the White House. 
 
 Great was the contrast 
 
 Between his outward look and the group 
 
 Of officers neatly arrayed about him. 
 
 And yet, he, straddled upon a steed 
 
 Tall like himself 
 
 Seemed overtopping them all, 
 
 Not only in body s but spirit s stature ; 
 
 He sent a glance of sympathy 
 
LINCOLN IN THE SADDLE. 91 
 
 Into each soldier s heart 
 
 From that benignant face of his 
 
 Channeled o er with a Nation s pain, 
 
 Whence on them fell a consecration 
 
 As of a God. 
 
 Then out of his eyes rayed forth a sheen 
 
 Which shot its glow from above 
 
 Into every beholder s soul, 
 
 And made him see the one luminary 
 
 Shining the time s first leadership, 
 
 Giving its light to the other leaders. 
 
 At once each soldier felt his presence 
 
 As if from it looked Omnipresence, 
 
 And saw the sun rise, self-luminous 
 
 Of his Personality 
 
 Centering all. 
 
 One soldier with a tear would say to himself : 
 
 "I feel he feels what I have felt, 
 
 And has suffered for me, though unknown to him ; 
 
 He is one of us, yea all of us in one, 
 
 I can hear his heart thump now 
 
 In response to ours." 
 
 Another sturdy blue-coat tensing his lips 
 Beneath the overplay tender of emotion 
 Made known himself in what he uttered : 
 "I note the iron of his Will 
 
92 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Which never can give up the sacred cause 
 
 As long as there is a musket-bearer left 
 
 To fire a shot for the Union. 
 
 His adamantine strength of purpose 
 
 Is what I behold riding yonder, 
 
 In highest potency world-upbearing." 
 
 And still another soldier placidly worded 
 
 His more philosophic bent : 
 
 "I see in him the mind of all History 
 
 Now incarnate again. 
 
 Behold him The World-Spirit on horseback. 
 
 But the comrade at his side would laugh, 
 
 Asking, "What do you mean? 
 
 I can only perceive ungainly Abe Lincoln, 
 
 Awkwardly split astraddle 
 
 Upon his lofty pacer, 
 
 Our homely, uncouth Chief Magistrate 
 
 Untrained in dress parade, 
 
 Our formless Western President 
 
 Entertaining a review 
 
 At the head of his Generals. 
 
 But the azure-bloused thinker still replied, 
 In talk with himself more than his mate: 
 "Two persons I can see by double vision 
 In yonder Presidential horseman, 
 Gaunt and long-boned is the rail-splitter, 
 
LINCOLN IN THE SADDLE. 93 
 
 Call him one of his split rails mounted ; 
 
 But can you not discern his other Self, 
 
 How it outsoars all his greatest officers, 
 
 His intelligence overmastering theirs 
 
 Though they too be united 
 
 In one common lordship of war? 
 
 I say again my inmost thought, 
 
 And dare name that appearance yonder, 
 
 Though for myself alone it be : 
 
 The World-Spirit in the saddle." 
 
 So spake the soldiering samples, 
 
 Each voicing the Folk in his own way 
 
 To one another in the ranks, 
 
 Now uniformed blithely in blue and armed 
 
 To preserve their Nation s heritage ; 
 
 All were cognizant of their leader supreme 
 
 Appearing there so unmilitary, 
 
 Yet with the greater sanction 
 
 They felt the mightier Presence in him 
 
 Inspiring their soul s fresh confidence 
 
 And with it a new-born love. 
 
 Also the Generals recognized him 
 
 As their upper General, 
 
 With a commission supernal 
 
 Of another seal than theirs. 
 
 Then from the People of soldiers 
 
 Breaking ranks back into their units, 
 
94 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Burst forth cheer upon cheer spontaneous 
 
 Which rose rolling around the skiey dome, 
 
 In honor of the loftier Personality. 
 
 But Lincoln turning inward asked himself: 
 
 Is it then true that I at last 
 
 Have conquered this army s love ? 
 
 Is the forecast already befalling 
 
 Which the Presence lately beriddled me?" 
 
 Mark still another scene of note ! 
 
 The President passed a camp of prisoners 
 
 Taken in the last battle; 
 
 They stand in little groups and gaze 
 
 As high horse and higher horseman ride by; 
 
 For a while they stared in silent wonder, 
 
 Then they too broke into a cheer 
 
 Perchance not all of them, not a half 
 
 But a bold fourth acted for the rest, 
 
 As if they also felt the higher Presence 
 
 Which now stood over them in turn; 
 
 Their benefactor he despite themselves, 
 
 Their Providence just appearing, 
 
 Though hitherto unrecognized 
 
 And hated, yea despised 
 
 With aristocratic disdain. 
 
 The President heard it, and reined up his horse, 
 He shot a flight of transcendent gleams, 
 
LINCOLN IN THE SADDLE. 95 
 
 With words exultant : 
 
 That is the summit of my hope 
 
 To win my enemies affection, 
 
 And soften their hearts once more 
 
 Members to be of the Union ! 
 
 That grey-coated cheer again! 
 
 The action thrills me more holily 
 
 Than the blue-coated hurrah 
 
 Yelled of my soldiery s thousands. 
 
 Hark ! once more ! What means it ? 
 
 The signal of future harmony 
 
 Foretokening oneness new of the Nation 
 
 I hail the act as prophetic 
 
 Of my dearest longing realized, 
 
 And of the Fatal Line wiped out." 
 
 So he waved his warmest salutation 
 
 To his loved rebels, 
 
 Then hurried away to his quarters 
 
 Where he flung himself down on his couch 
 
 To hold a festival happy of thoughts 
 
 With himself alone, 
 
 Letting them run out into still words 
 
 About this Potomac army. 
 
 "So I have won its love 
 
 After a four years wooing ! 
 
 I felt barred out despite all endeavor, 
 
 By a more favored suitor ; 
 
96 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 McClellan seemed to have charmed it and held it 
 
 Even when he was absent. 
 
 Till now I never could cross its barrier, 
 
 That solid wall of hearts 
 
 Upheaved against me in this army, 
 
 Having some subtle strange connection 
 
 With the outer wall of Fate 
 
 Hitherto here insurmountable 
 
 By this same army, 
 
 And also by me. 
 
 But now the change ! No more I feel 
 
 That bodeful reserve as if it were sulking 
 
 Underneath its dutiful cheers; 
 
 The inner barrier is overflowed, 
 
 And so will the outer be next. 
 
 Now I forefeel I shall cross the Fatal Line, 
 
 Rebellion s Line so oft up thrust against me, 
 
 With bloody carnage. 
 
 But another task lies nearest 
 
 Let me at once push off to that." 
 
 Meanwhile the three great Generals again beheld 
 
 Their greater General, 
 
 Whose soul was big enough 
 
 To take up both sides, South and North, 
 
 Victor and vanquished, friend and foe, 
 
 And weld them to a higher Union. 
 
 It was another even larger lesson 
 
LINCOLN IN THE SADDLE. 97 
 
 Of that school in which they had been trained 
 During these last few days of instruction, 
 By the world s school-master, 
 When military discipline itself 
 Was disciplined. 
 
 Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, 
 
 The trinity highest of Generalship, 
 
 With the new lesson in the heart 
 
 Each goes his way victorious 
 
 To do the final deed. 
 
 And the Generals marked the inner hold 
 
 Of Lincoln s overarching love 
 
 Upon the whole people, 
 
 How it began to cement 
 
 The sides hitherto so deeply divorced, 
 
 Bonding them in the heart s unity. 
 
 The folk s mediator with the age 
 
 He revealed himself, 
 
 And the savior of the Nation s one being 
 
 With its liberty. 
 
 Mark too the Superman military 
 
 Eise the triumphant Genius of War 
 
 Overwhelming the foe, 
 
 But limiting now himself as subsumed 
 
 Under the greater Self above him. 
 
 Lincoln had sprung out of his revery, 
 The happiest he had known in years, 
 
98 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 For he felt the victory first of love 
 
 Whose withholding so long had been his gloom, 
 
 But also it brought the certain presage 
 
 Of the outer rise over destiny s bound 
 
 Which had so oft him repelled in defeat. 
 
 But mid this outburst of sudden joy 
 
 He bethought himself of the sorrows, 
 
 Which saddened the time, 
 
 And thus worded his sympathy : 
 
 1 1 The pomp of war I have just witnessed 
 
 And shared its glory ; 
 
 I now must look at the other side, 
 
 And suffer with suffering, 
 
 That I be whole myself. 
 
 Where is my guide, the Doctor ? 
 
 Let us be off at once." 
 
 But the soldiers now individuals, 
 
 Loosed from their chain of order, 
 
 Grouped themselves at the roaring camp-fires 
 
 For their meal of crackers and bacon 
 
 Each one thinking of the apparition 
 
 Seen that day on horseback 
 
 Overtopping the highest officers 
 
 In weird collossality 
 
 Reaching beyond and yet beyond 
 
 The bounded mortal framework : 
 
 What does it mean ? 
 
LINCOLN IN THE SADDLE. 99 
 
 All were interrogating in silent wonder 
 
 As they sat hushed by the spell, 
 
 Looking into the formful flame ever-shifting 
 
 For the answer to their oracle. 
 
 At last one voice broke out again 
 
 Fabling in repetition of itself, 
 
 But only spoke the deeper mystery : 
 
 1 Time s very semblance we have seen 
 
 The World-Spirit in the saddle." 
 
 In the prophetic mood of the People 
 
 Still farther flew the flighty spectacle 
 
 Toward the coming ages limitless, 
 
 In whose vast sea they glimpse the present deed 
 
 Forging in strokes of war the Union new 
 
 As modeling norm of future governments, 
 
 The prototype of Nations yet to be, 
 
 The federation of the continent 
 
 Which cannot stop until it rounds the globe. 
 
 All dared now think the private soldier s phrase, 
 
 In outreach far of forecast, 
 
 Trying to see the eternal Lincoln 
 
 Revealed in the words oracular : 
 
 "The World-Spirit in the saddle." 
 
IX. 
 The Place of Suffering. 
 
 And so it comes that the heartful President 
 
 Seeks next the place of war s suffering, 
 
 Sad counterpart of military splendor, 
 
 The other side of all victory 
 
 The tearful hospital now he visits 
 
 To witness the dying and the dead, 
 
 And ponder the penalty infernal 
 
 Exacted of the best for what is best 
 
 Upon this earth of ours. 
 
 Lincoln knew suffering, 
 
 Recognized it as his first birthright 
 
 Descending to him as individual; 
 
 Aye he needed it 
 
 To make his fraction of manhood 
 
 An entire Self, 
 
 And rise out of human halfness 
 
 (100) 
 
THE PLACE OF SUFFERING. 1Q1 
 
 To the divine entirety of his being 
 Transcendent of his born finitude. 
 
 Still his suffering ended not in himself, 
 
 But became an avenue to a greater: 
 
 He bore the Nation s agony 
 
 Not merely his little own. 
 
 He took into himself the common sorrow, 
 
 And in his breast there throbbed the throes 
 
 Of the universal heart 
 
 When wrung by war s fatality. 
 
 As he moved into that other world, 
 
 He glanced down the many aisles of anguish 
 
 From the hospital s doorway leading; 
 
 A mighty stroke of pain s huge sledge 
 
 Smote in his brain at the sudden sight, 
 
 And halted him there on the spot, 
 
 Dazing him into stark bewilderment 
 
 Till his eyes began to look a prayer 
 
 And his tongue was loosed to utterance 
 
 Of faith s final consolation : 
 
 "A new redemption rises on the age 
 
 From this daring challenge to death 
 
 And defiance of flesh s torture 
 
 From these pang-pierced myriads. 
 
 The time is one great crucifixion, 
 
 Not an ideal of long-ago, 
 
 But to-day s fierce reality 
 
102 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 And every day s. 
 
 The whole people are nailed to the cross 
 
 That they through the discipline 
 
 Won of our mortal pain 
 
 Be made whole within 
 
 Out of their Hell s separation, 
 
 And rise up once more 
 
 To their new resurrection. 
 
 The Nation has become a Calvary 
 
 Where not alone the dying and the dead 
 
 Show the time s affliction, 
 
 But the living also are stretched and clamped 
 
 On the holy rood of woe 
 
 Causing the tribulation massed 
 
 Of all hearts of the people." 
 
 So Lincoln spoke, their representative, 
 Seeking to fathom pain s Providence 
 Not only in cold reason s argument 
 But in the soul s outburst of feeling; 
 He was the concentration quivering 
 Of their colossal agony, 
 As well as of their resolution 
 To endure of suffering to the uttermost, 
 Till the great work be finished 
 With the crossing of the Fatal Line. 
 He had to lead his folk through Hell 
 Himself the prime victim of its torture, 
 
THE PLACE OF SUFFERING. 1Q3 
 
 The hottest Hell of war s stern test, 
 
 Till holy peace s best fulfillment 
 
 "Would bring Heaven s reward. 
 
 He the leader of their task 
 
 Incarnated also its woe in himself 
 
 Until they had triumphed over it 
 
 With him in fellowship tested of sorrow. 
 
 As the widow and the orphan 
 
 He felt the same bereavement, 
 
 And with them he made their sacrifice ; 
 
 Thus he was all of what they were, 
 
 But still kept himself integral 
 
 Despite the lacerations of his heart. 
 
 Stabbed by his sympathy 
 
 Till he felt as his own every paroxysm, 
 
 At the sick bedside or in the tent 
 
 He would sit down and grasp the helpless hand, 
 
 And cast his glances of benediction 
 
 Till the dying soldier half in the beyond 
 
 And already seeing visions of Heaven, 
 
 Would return to the earth that he live 
 
 One parting smile 
 
 Of recognition to the President. 
 
 Thus Lincoln sought the Place of Suffering 
 Where he, in necessity deep of nature 
 Would pour forth his compassion, 
 In relief of his bursting heart, 
 
104 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Consoling others 
 
 That he be the total man in himself 
 
 Encompassing in vast outreach of soul 
 
 The fellow feeling of all mortality. 
 
 The corpse dressed in blue was borne by 
 
 On its winding-sheet of coarse blanket, 
 
 The President would remove his high hat 
 
 Still bandaged in crape for his boy, 
 
 His darling Willie, 
 
 To whom he often longed to fly beyond 
 
 Honoring not alone the stark dead soldier, 
 
 But as saluting Death himself in person, 
 
 He would tune to low warble his voice 
 
 Unearthly in tremulous joy 
 
 As if hailing his own last departure : 
 
 " Welcome, thou loving Releaser! 
 
 Of me the Liberator 
 
 Thou art the greater Liberator ! 
 
 I shall soon be with thee 
 
 To receive my final franchise from thee, 
 
 Which I have so often prayed for 
 
 But was not to get 
 
 Till I had crossed the Fatal Line. 
 
 I have emancipated a race, 
 
 Approach, Death, emancipate me; 
 
 I have liberated my Nation, 
 
 Yield me now thy tender embrace, 
 
THE PLACE OF SUFFERING. 1Q5 
 
 Break the shackles of mortality, 
 
 And set me free. 
 
 Give me to see again the beloved 
 
 Who are hidden behind thy veil ! 
 
 From the two most deeply twinned in my heart 
 
 Tear away the living curtain, 
 
 Restore me my loves, gentle Death ! 
 
 I beseech justice, 
 
 Mine own deed give back to me, 
 
 As I have enfranchised humanity, 
 
 So enfranchise thou me ; 
 
 Cleave my bonds and take me 
 
 To thy immortal freedom, Death I" 
 
 Thus inwardly hymned his heart 
 
 Attuned to the Place of Suffering. 
 
 Soon had the funeral passed, 
 
 And the blue-shrouded body vanished hazily 
 
 Out of vision graveward. 
 
 Lincoln hatted himself again 
 
 To face the world with his life 
 
 And bespake thus his self-recovery: 
 
 "What a boon to man is suffering! 
 
 The test of his eternal worth, 
 
 Methinks that through it alone can he earn 
 
 His due of the everlasting. 
 
 Less than an animal would he drop, 
 
 And lapse far back in his nature 
 
106 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 To become like the flower which, suffers not. 
 Paying his debt of affliction 
 As life s just toll 
 Makes him the freeman universal, 
 Gaining his mastery over finitude. 
 Canst thou love thy suffering 
 And transfigure it? 
 To bear the cross is the symbol greatest 
 And then to be crucified on it 
 Means redemption. 
 Passing through Hell 
 Canst thou make it a progress 
 Triumphal over Hell ? 
 Such is the price which our manhood pays 
 For every step in advance, 
 Exacted of us by the Upper Powers 
 Not as a curse but as a blessing. 
 The suffering of the individual, 
 Yea of the nation and of the race 
 In the grand nodes of History 
 Is the mystery which I contemplate 
 Here in this hospital, 
 And fellow-feel it all 
 Seeking to harmonize myself 
 With God s secret in Man s creation." 
 
 So Lincoln could not help in his own heart 
 Vicariously passioning 
 
THE PLACE OF SUFFERING. 1Q7 
 
 At the bed-side of the Nation 
 
 The folk s vast agony 
 
 As a human Providence, 
 
 Not shunning the dread sight of pain, 
 
 But recognizing it as a needful part 
 
 Of the new palingenesis. 
 
 The Nation s rent lay in him when a youth, 
 
 Half slave half free he felt himself with it, 
 
 Whence rose his melancholy ; 
 
 But now that rent turns to war excruciating 
 
 Even in the process of its healing. 
 
 So suffering is not in vain 
 
 Even that of the humblest soldier, 
 
 Every twinge of pain is not thrown away 
 
 But belongs to the order s wholeness 
 
 Which integrates man and the world; 
 
 This mighty tribulation called life 
 
 Is something not for nought 
 
 Yea, it is divine, 
 
 But you have to make it such, 
 
 Else it may tear you to pieces ; 
 
 For Hell is here in all its glory 
 
 Just to be unhelled by you, 
 
 And translated to Heaven. 
 
 Lincoln wringing his soul with such thoughts 
 Was upbearing his consolation 
 To the heights of supernal purpose, 
 
108 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 When he caught a glimpse of a wound 
 
 Brain-bleeding upon the cot 
 
 Of a dying soldier 
 
 With a bullet hole behind the left ear. 
 
 The President shrank down into a seat, 
 
 Overcome not so much by the sight 
 
 As by the sudden furious upburst 
 
 Of his deepest presentiment 
 
 Lurking in the dark nooks of his underself 
 
 Prom his first memory of time. 
 
 He saw himself in that man before him 
 
 Passing off with slow ebbs of pulsation 
 
 Out of a pistol shot piercing his skull ; 
 
 His counterpart he beheld again 
 
 As once at Springfield and at the White-House, 
 
 Not ghostly now but still alive, 
 
 Drooping away toward the departure 
 
 Into the dreamful Beyond, 
 
 And pre-enacting his own last breath 
 
 In vivid deed of reality. 
 
 It seemed to the President that he saw 
 
 The very ooze of his final moment 
 
 Drip down on the blood-stained floor 
 
 In a gory clot, 
 
 When he exclaimed as over his own frame 
 
 While it lay gurgling there: 
 
 By bullet in the brain I too shall die ! 
 
 I forefeel the event stalking on me, 
 
THE PLACE OF SUFFERING-. 109 
 
 In shadowy outline, 
 
 I hear the very word of Fate 
 
 Quivering from the last pale throb of these lips 
 
 This common soldier turns my exemplar, 
 
 I must soon be what he is 
 
 Long has this been pre-figured me, 
 
 As a child I would forecast it 
 
 Hearing the tale of my grandfather 
 
 Slain by an Indian s bullet. 
 
 And I when still a young man, 
 
 As soldier campaigning the Black-Hawk War, 
 
 Oft imaged the blob of lead 
 
 Burrowing in my brain. 
 
 But let it come, I hail it, 
 
 Yet not till I have crossed the Fatal Line 
 
 And made it mine 
 
 Look! Who slips hither so ghostly?" 
 
 Ere his voice could finish his thought, 
 
 Lincoln was ware of an old man 
 
 In the hospital s easy garb 
 
 Standing before him with kindly mien ; 
 
 Beneath the white beard and wrinkled features 
 
 He traced the faint lines of a younger face 
 
 Which he had looked upon long years since 
 
 With love and gratitude. 
 
 Tell me, who are you, angel or man ? 
 
 He spake up in surprise, 
 
HO LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Perchance impatient at the interruption: 
 
 l Do you belong to my revery ? 
 
 Or to this outer earth-ball undreamed ? 
 
 Why an inmate here of this House of Pain ? 
 
 The venerable countenance 
 
 Became luminous with its answer. 
 
X. 
 
 Reminiscent. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 At last, my Abraham Lincoln! I have been 
 waiting four years to meet you, but somehow oppor 
 tunity kept dodging me, even when our paths 
 crossed. I had almost given up the hope of seeing 
 my Presidential pupil, my unique honor. But I 
 observe that you do not recognize me. I saw you 
 enter here, I have kept my eye on you for some 
 minutes, while I performed the last duties to this 
 poor fellow at my side. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Excuse me I was deeply occupied with some 
 thing long past but startlingly present. Still a 
 faint image of you fleeted through my brain as of 
 features which I had seen before. I yet am not 
 quite able to locate you. 
 
 CUD 
 
112 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 "Well, let me prompt you a little. I saw you 
 many years since when you were a tall limber 
 youth, take your flat-boat over the dam at New 
 Salem. I stood on the hill-side overlooking the 
 scene with other citizens. And the women of the 
 village were there too, as spectators, among them 
 was a young lady, whom you must remember, a 
 pupil of mine. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Unforgetable ! But you, then, are the school 
 master of New Salem, who gave so much help to 
 my budding mind. Mentor Graham, I hold you one 
 of my greatest benefactors. That was, let me see, 
 more than thirty years ago; the frontier village 
 and many of the people have passed away, and 
 yet we two are preserved to meet again in this 
 distant troubled spot. Strange, I was just dream 
 ing backward in my life, and up you rise. But say, 
 how came you hither ? 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Only too glad to tell you. When the war broke 
 out, I was too old to enlist as a soldier, and take 
 a man s full part in the country s crisis, so I went 
 as a nurse for the sick and wounded, in whicl: 
 work my zeal and some little knowledge of medicine 
 helped me. Many mutations of the war I have 
 
REMINISCENT. H3 
 
 wound through both in the West and in the East, 
 till I find myself now in the valley of the James 
 where the close of the conflict seems at hand. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 You are still true to your character, as I recollect 
 you in my young days, of striving for betterment. 
 You always extended me your hand of help at the 
 right moment; I remember your faith in me when 
 I had not much in myself. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Let me recall another event of those early days 
 which is as vivid this moment as it was when I saw 
 it a generation ago I think of it often still. Be 
 fore the assembled people of the village you shook 
 the sword presented to you as Captain in the Black- 
 Hawk War at South Carolina which was then show 
 ing her character by nullification. Do you know 
 that I have long regarded that inspired act of 
 yours for it was an inspiration of the future 
 as a prelude foreshadowing your whole career dur 
 ing this war? 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 I have certainly had cause to remember that 
 scene. How can I help it when I am doing over 
 on a great scale what I then did on a very little 
 one! I too muse upon that strange deed which in 
 its way pre-enacted what I am fulfilling just now. 
 
114 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 And the whole Nation foreshadowed itself in that 
 one wee atom of New Salem. Yes, I have often 
 to go back in my life to the beginnings, and take 
 my bearing afresh. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 I cannot help bringing up another matter out 
 of that distant time and town. You have done 
 what I then believed should be done, for saying 
 which I once came near being mobbed you have 
 freed the slave. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Nor have I forgotten you in that part. You 
 were in advance of us all then, but the Nation has 
 caught up with you, and I have followed. 
 Old Man. 
 
 This whole conflict was in the air then and there, 
 and I have often thought our little village went 
 through a brief epitome of the war three decades 
 before hand. The fact that you were elected a 
 small captain set me to dreaming already at that 
 time of your greater Captaincy. 
 Lincoln. 
 
 A searching lesson you have given me again, my 
 dear old schoolmaster. You are the magician to 
 expand New Salem into the United States, to make 
 the Sangamon flow into the James, to see the all in 
 one of its atoms. 
 
REMINISCENT. H5 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 As you seem in the mood, come with me a few 
 steps and I shall set you adream with a new ex 
 perience of the old, sending you further back in 
 your life than even New Salem. We are approach 
 ing the cot of a wounded soldier now happily con 
 valescent. Here he is, address him if you will. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 My boy, you will soon return home on a happy 
 furlough, I think ; whence do you come your town 
 and State? 
 
 Soldier. 
 
 From Gentryville, Indiana. I am the son of 
 Squire David Turnham from whom you, when a 
 mere stripling, borrowed your first book of laws. I 
 know you from your picture, and I heard you 
 once make a speech at Charleston, Illinois, when 
 you had the debate with Douglas. I went there 
 with some town s-people who wished to see you 
 again, out of memory of old times. I want to say 
 that we still keep the book containing the Con 
 stitution of the United States, which my father 
 loaned you to read. It has still many of your 
 marks ; by the soiled leaves you must have studied 
 it in your cabin before the chimney fire not far 
 from your mother s frying pan. "We cherish that 
 book, and it is to be mine if I get home again. 
 
116 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Is it possible ! Another whirl back to one s early 
 germinating self! I have not forgotten how I 
 pored over that document in my youth, and I am 
 dealing with it still to-day, and am not yet done. 
 Sprawling before the fire-place I perused it by the 
 flickers of light from the hickory wood. But my 
 most lasting recollectiton is that, young as I was, 
 I felt the deep dark cleft rending the Constitution, 
 and wished somehow that it should be obliterated. 
 It cut the sacred work in twain, as it did the States 
 also. How could there be a permanent Union with 
 such a cleavage, I asked myself even then. 
 
 Soldier. 
 
 It must have stirred you deeply, for I remember 
 a black line drawn by a piece of coal from the fire 
 place through that passage of the instrument 
 which recognizes slavery yet without naming it. I 
 saw that erasing line again only seven months ago 
 when I was home on a little outing. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Still further I may confess to both of you that 
 I as a boy was in myself, in my very soul rifted by 
 that dark dividing line in our organic law and in 
 our country. It gave my entire life a tinge of 
 gloom which has deepened till now, and which I 
 shall never get rid of till the line itself shall be 
 
REMINISCENT. \Yl 
 
 eliminated from our land and law, aye from our 
 souls. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Let me interrupt with the strange coincidence, 
 the news of which we have already received : Con 
 gress has passed through your efforts the Thir 
 teenth Amendment, and sent it to the States for 
 confirmation, wiping out that line of division in 
 the Constitution round which the entire war has 
 raged. But do you not feel queer ? What you as 
 a youth blotted out from a printed page, you as a 
 man have obliterated from existence. Again you 
 have prophesied yourself. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Verily I seem to be living in a poem which the 
 wild imagination of the bard has rounded out ac 
 cording to his foreordained scheme. Am I then the 
 fantastic hero of some old romance whose minstrel 
 cunningly conjoins first and last into life s closed 
 circle? You, my schoolmaster once more, have 
 brought me back through this boy quite to the 
 starting-point of my career, and given me my 
 loftiest lesson. A presentiment steals over me that 
 I am winding up existence itself to a final link. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 I nursed the wounded lad, and found in him a 
 young Abe Lincoln whose ideal was yourself. He 
 
118 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 had learned by heart a number of your sayings and 
 speeches, and he had one of your anecdotes ready 
 for every emergency. So I, as pedagogue, predict 
 that you are yet to go into the training of all the 
 youth of our land, truly their greatest teacher. 
 And the grown person too will ponder the imitation 
 of Lincoln, as the religious devotee meditates the 
 imitation of the Lord. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 I hardly dare think of it. But you, my old in 
 structor, are not the least of these miracles which 
 turn me back to my youthful beginnings. I feel my 
 self sent to your school again, which imparts to me 
 a peculiar knowledge of myself, very different from 
 that first instruction in Grammar at New Salem in 
 the round school-house whose bell I can still hear 
 calling me to my lesson. That was indeed an outer 
 training very necessary to me then and it was all 
 I could take, but now you have thrown me back 
 upon the deepest round of my whole life. As 
 before said, I seem to be moving in a fictioned or 
 ideal world above our little fragments of daily 
 routine. Let me hail you, Mentor Graham, the 
 new schoolmaster with a new set of lessons. And 
 to you, my dear lad, I must now say good-bye. 
 
 Soldier. 
 Good-bye, my President; but you cannot vanish 
 
REMINISCENT. 119 
 
 from me; though you should die, you are still 
 present. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 The schoolmaster is not going to leave you yet, 
 without giving you another lesson, which you your 
 self have unconsciously suggested. You have spok 
 en of yourself as seeming to be in an imaginative, 
 romantic, poetic world here with me. Now I am 
 going to lead you to the poet himself, who is like 
 wise a nurse in these hospitals. Our common labors 
 have often brought us together, and at odd moments 
 he has repeated me some of his verses, with many a 
 curious bit of his life s adventures thrown in by the 
 way. There he is yonder, regard him well, for he 
 deserves it; you may know him, for he says he 
 knows you. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 What ! our village rhymer here too, Jack Kelso ! 
 "Why all New Salem seems to have arisen from the 
 dead and to have settled here with you ! Or am I 
 present at the resurrection! 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Let me say, this singer abjures rhymes. The 
 old poetic machine he has smashed boldly, that 
 machine of verse which we inherited from Europe, 
 being transmitted to us specially through our New 
 England skalds. You recollect that I as teacher 
 
120 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 had no great admiration for the little tinkle-crinkle 
 called American poetry. It does not say anything 
 great, being hardly more than a pretty toy which 
 is to be thrown aside after a moment s amusement 
 or handed over to the children. Now what I like 
 about this verse-smith is that he has broken with 
 the old rhyming past and refuses to be merely a 
 jingling jongleur. You know I am a schoolmaster, 
 a pedant if you please, still I sometimes think that 
 if I were not so old, I would try my hand at the 
 new epic myself. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Certainly you have hatched out to a wonder, I 
 never saw such a turn in you before. But tell me 
 his name I remember seeing him around Washing 
 ton he has a peculiar costume and look ; I recollect 
 too his unique salute. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 He has familiarly dubbed himself Walt Whitman 
 in his own print, some of which I have read. Let 
 me give you the warning that you are his chief 
 other hero, for he has over you and all the rest a 
 greater one, namely himself. But here he ap 
 proaches, ready to address you. 
 
 Whitman. 
 
 mighty soul, how like to thee I am! We are 
 born of one spirit. 
 
REMINISCENT. 121 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 I feel your deep sympathy with your work; I 
 have observed you before in the hospitals around 
 Washington. The nation owes you gratitude. 
 
 Whitman, 
 
 You are Democracy itself, rail-splitter, flatboat- 
 man, story-teller, and now the President with one 
 passion, that of the Union. I sing Democracy and 
 myself. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 We shall have to pass on. Send me some of your 
 verses when you print them. Farewell. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 Mark, that bard with his strange runes will have 
 his day yet. Very original and yet one-sided ! He 
 gave me his book and I have been poring over it a 
 good deal, it is not easy reading for me, the poet 
 of democracy is undemocratic in utterance and 
 really writes for a clique of special students. He is 
 unintelligible to the masses. I have tried his 
 verses on the average of people here in the hospital. 
 He cannot touch the popular heart as you do, par 
 ticularly in that last Inaugural of yours, which is 
 to me the greatest American poem yet written. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 I confess, my dear schoolmaster, that I am not 
 
122 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 averse to a compliment on that bit of my writing. 
 Glad you like it. 
 
 Old Man. 
 
 I go further and say that he does not fully get 
 hold of you at most he grasps only one side of you, 
 as I look at your career. Whitman sees the indi 
 vidual Lincoln, with great fervor and power, not 
 the universal one ; the mighty self he sings but not 
 the mightier overself ; he stresses the worth of the 
 me as single, but not of the me as truly socialized ; 
 ideal comradeship he witnesses but not the ideal 
 community. "We have often disputed sometimes 
 with heat I affirming that he does not represent 
 you adequately, nor America. He has traveled in 
 our West and has mightily caught its upbursting 
 chaos, but not its rising cosmos, he seems only to 
 celebrate the time s outbreak but not its order. He 
 glorifies the Ego, especially his own, but not the 
 institution. How then can he know you as savior 
 of the Union and its restorer? The little man as 
 individual he hallows, not the greater Man as as 
 sociated an elemental energy, an upsetting whirl 
 wind, a poetic tornado with all its negative force 
 but enough ! Here is my cosy little shack, come in 
 I have still some deeper intimacies to tell you. 
 
XI. 
 
 Resurgam. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 What a strange sensation ! I seem to be entering 
 your school-house again at New Salem. A little 
 sketch of it hangs yonder on your wall. You, an 
 old man, live in reminiscence, and carry its at 
 mosphere with you, and I feel myself dropping 
 back into the life of that departed village on the 
 Sangamon. Truly you appear transformed before 
 me into Mentor Graham, my instructor as he was 
 a generation ago. 
 
 Mentor Graham. 
 
 Our walk has brought us to the room assigned 
 me as my quarters, which I have tricked out to my 
 taste, and to which I retire for repose and revery. 
 Cribbed in thus and given over to myself I can 
 
 (123) 
 
124 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 turn back upon life, and get relief from the suf 
 fering which I daily witness and indeed share. 
 Here is the one stool for you, while I can stretch 
 out in my bunk for my composure and give myself 
 up to reviews of the past. It is strange how that 
 little New Salem stands forth in my days with 
 you as its central figure who have made it im 
 mortal, though it has vanished, I hear, with not a 
 house standing only a pile of old stones marks 
 its site. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Well do I remember your school; the more so 
 because I have just been holding a session with my 
 generals, I too being a sort of school-master. But 
 that which echoes through me as I look at yonder 
 sketch is the sound of the school-bell which used 
 to wave its pleasant tones over the surrounding 
 country. How often have I listened to it in the 
 distance ! 
 
 Mentor Graham. 
 
 That little community has indeed disappeared 
 from the earth, still it is alive in me as a kind of 
 ideal world. You know when we all migrated and 
 left dying New Salem to its last stillness. We built 
 beyond the Mississippi another village like it with 
 stores and workshops, aye another school-house 
 with its bell and inscription but it was not the 
 
RESURGAM. 125 
 
 same, it lacked the one creative personality ; it had 
 no Abe Lincoln. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Oh aged friend, still my Mentor here and guide, 
 you lead me to re-live myself in your words. That 
 inscription on the school-bell is ringing through 
 my mind Resurgam. My dead past rises out of 
 its grave and speaks to me : man must go back and 
 be resurrected while yet alive, yea in order to 
 live truly. I am returning to my former life 
 through you, and therein renewing and completing 
 myself. Now I know that I do not need to die 
 in order to be resurrected ; here it is in you, in New 
 Salem, in myself. How vividly I recall that 
 strange-worded motto on a fragment of the bell 
 saved from the ashes of the burnt school-house ! I 
 picked up the precious inscription and bore it to 
 the grave of the beloved as her monument ever- 
 present Resurgam. 
 
 Mentor Graham. 
 
 A similar experience is mine, as you must note. 
 I often repeat for guidance and consolation this 
 article of my creed : Life is resurrection, not death. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 I confess that our little communal atom still 
 pulses in me more vitality than any other spot on 
 
126 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 the globe more than Springfield, than Washing 
 ton. My entire existence, yea my future career bud 
 ded there, which bud has since flowered. The intens- 
 est, most formative experiences of my life took place 
 there, especially that which made me an integral 
 man, and molded me in humanity s image my 
 deepest love and my greatest sorrow. 
 
 Mentor Graham. 
 
 I remember it all and can still see you under 
 the crush of it. But let me show you something 
 which I am going to take from my valise, and 
 which I brought with me to Washington as a 
 reminder, intending to show it to you when I saw 
 you. But I never had the chance till now, which 
 is probably the best time. Look at this book. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 I see it is the English grammar which I studied 
 under your direction, and I recollect walking 
 several miles through mud in order to get 
 it from its owner, being the sole copy known in 
 those regions. How great a boon it was to me ! My 
 speech was chaos before this printed page was 
 placed into my hands, and illumined with your 
 instruction. It put into order my mother-tongue 
 and gave me a certain mastery over it which I 
 have not forgotten to this day. 
 
RE SV ROAM. 127 
 
 Mentor Graham. 
 
 If it did that, it made you the greatest writer 
 this country has yet produced. You have uttered 
 the most eternal English words of the century if 
 not all centuries. Pardon this outburst of praise 
 to your face from your old schoolmaster who pos 
 sibly shows in it some partiality for his famous 
 pupil, and some pride in his own teaching. I may 
 be in an over-critical mood, but really yours seems 
 to me quite the only permanent literature but tell 
 me, what deep sigh is that which suddenly breaks 
 up from the deeps ? 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Wait! I confess I am struck almost breathless 
 by a thunderbolt of memory. I see on the title 
 page in my own handwriting the name of her who 
 studied with me and made every lesson a com 
 munion of love. No such happy days shall ever 
 be mine again in this world. 
 
 Mentor Graham. 
 
 I notice that you are reading through your 
 tears. Let us turn away for a moment here is 
 something else you will be glad to look at, the pic 
 ture of a lady in a kind of miniature. I received it 
 from a Confederate officer who took it from his 
 bosom, and whose last hours I attended at Gettys- 
 
128 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 burg, he having been mortally wounded in Piekett *s 
 charge, and left a prisoner on our hands. A fine 
 Southern gentleman of striking personal appear 
 ance I was drawn not only by duty, but by a 
 peculiar affection toward him as he lay bleeding 
 on his cot. He handed me this keepsake which he 
 said was his mother s picture. Do you recognize 
 the face ? You have seen it often. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Another New Salem reminiscence you overflow 
 me with them. This lady lived just outside the 
 village in a fine colonial mansion, where she kept 
 up her Southern hospitality, and deepened it with 
 many deeds of charity. I have been at her house 
 often she was a sort of adviser and reconciler of 
 the whole community. She had been left the widow 
 of an army officer with two young sons, whom she 
 concluded to take back to Virginia for their breed 
 ing and education. Yes, I know her, can recall her 
 name the Lady Eulalia Lovelace. I thought that 
 her last move was in the wrong direction. She 
 ought to have stayed with her boys in the West, 
 the land of the future. I often wondered how these 
 times were treating her ; a sad lot must have over 
 taken her and her sons in this all-devouring re 
 bellion, these being of right military age. I wish 
 I might see her and help her. 
 
RESURGAM. 129 
 
 Mentor Graham. 
 
 I have heard that she belongs somewhere in this 
 tide- water portion of the old Dominion now every 
 where devastated. I would like to find her and tell 
 her about the last moments of her son, and also in 
 form her where he lies buried in a Northern grave 
 yard. Besides this picture I have a few trinkets 
 of his, and some gold pieces which he gave me 
 and which I am eager to restore to her, as she must 
 be in need of them now if alive. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Ah me ! this terrible war ! how I wish it was over ! 
 Yet I must keep it going till it end in the right way, 
 which event I hope to be near. 
 
 Mentor Graham. 
 
 "Wait, my friend ; I have another token which by 
 some unaccountable instinct I have preserved all 
 these years and even brought it with me in hope of 
 seeing you. It is an immortelle from the coffin of 
 Ann Rutledge, whose father gave it to me as a 
 memento for you when you might be able to re 
 ceive it, which you were not at the time when she 
 was laid to rest. The opportunity never came till 
 now. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 What sacred devotion ! Oh truest teacher of my 
 life, you call up the discipline through which I then 
 passed, in the severest preparation for my whole 
 
130 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 caireer the discipline of death. Without such 
 training I never could have lived through this aw 
 ful ordeal of war. I would have lost my human 
 heart, my universal love, which has always come to 
 upstay me in the sorest hour of trial. How much 
 does this little symbol of a flower mean to me ! Do 
 you know that I often now get relief by citing some 
 lines of poetry which you must have heard me re 
 peat in New Salem: "0 why should the spirit of 
 mortal be proud" 
 
 Mentor Graham. 
 
 Let me interrupt somebody outside is calling 
 for you at the top of his voice : the President ! the 
 President! I shall open the door. 
 
 Messenger. 
 
 Is Lincoln, the President, here ? Oh what a time 
 I have had in tracing you to this shack! "Well, 
 Petersburg is ours! General Grant has sent 
 for you, please come at once to his headquarters, 
 your horse is here already saddled and waits for 
 you ; we are all to ride to the city with you, before 
 the General sets out in pursuit of the fleeing enemy. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Indeed! what a sudden plunge from dream to 
 reality ! It looks as if I am at last to cross the Fatal 
 Line. Good-bye, my dear old schoolmaster, you 
 have given me one of your best lessons. But I shall 
 see you again after the crossing. 
 
XII. 
 Crossing The Fatal Line. 
 
 Now let us share our President s delight 
 
 As he rides forward to his highest goal 
 
 No more resisting him with wall of fire 
 
 Which has been hurling back his soldiery 
 
 Year after year in penitential blood, 
 
 Till here, just here his mettled steed rears up, 
 
 As if it too would stress the mighty deed, 
 
 And with him leaps upon the Fatal Line, 
 
 Responsive to some greater mastery. 
 
 Thus he has passed the broken battlements 
 
 Of Petersburg deserted of the foe, 
 
 Its cannonry no longer volleying death, 
 
 And stilled its dreadful emphasis of voice 
 
 While helpless lie war s fractured implements. 
 
 Even a bluebird of the opening spring 
 
 Flew fluttering before him with a twitter 
 
 (131) 
 
132 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 And lit upon some fragment of a gun, 
 Daring to celebrate the season new 
 Instinct with Nature s hintful melodies. 
 
 Lincoln responded in an uplift strange 
 
 As if he winged him toward a rising world 
 
 "Which now began to limn itself to light 
 
 And flash into his vision from afar 
 
 Out risen clouds of sunlit prophecy. 
 
 He saw America awakening 
 
 Into the turn of her true destiny, 
 
 Taking her place unique in History 
 
 Asserting her own right in the long sweep 
 
 Which is recorded of the life of States 
 
 America with character distinct 
 
 Prom that of European commonweal 
 
 And from remoter Orient s polity, 
 
 The third high Order with the other two 
 
 In the grand cycle of historic time 
 
 To round the process of the aeons yet. 
 
 Thus Lincoln mused his spectacle s fleet flight 
 
 Toward the unlimited of years unborn 
 
 Whose process holds at heart the present deed 
 
 As prototype of what is greatly done 
 
 To reach the goal of all humanity, 
 
 Which is to universalize this work, 
 
 Forming a union of the scattered world 
 
 Still to unfold until it belts the earth, 
 
CROSSING THE FATAL LINE. 133 
 
 When its full round must join the continents. 
 Nor could he quite leave out his own self s view, 
 For as his horse sprang through the Fatal Line, 
 He dared bethink the private soldier s phrase 
 Which seemed to throb to him upon the air 
 Again in accents he had heard before : 
 "See yonder the World-Spirit in the saddle." 
 
 As Lincoln swayed upon his revery, 
 General Grant came riding to his side 
 And spake a pleasant word of memory : 
 I beg you note this well-built rampart here 
 Which circles round the town in many a curve ; 
 This was the mouth which shot the loud salute 
 At your arrival on the River James. 
 And the odd turns and angles of this wall 
 I deem to be the serpent s twists and coils 
 Which you saw crawling all along this line, 
 As you narrated me your dream of it ; 
 The monster tis which tried to lasso you 
 With its looped tail and body s rings. 
 Look how it squirms along its tortuous path, 
 No wonder that you saw the Devil here 
 Eager to hug you good around the neck." 
 Such banter the staid Grant, the practical, 
 Played out on ideal Lincoln s fantasy 
 To whom the latter gave a passing smile 
 And started tapping some pat anecdote 
 
134 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Out of his reservoir never failing, 
 
 When suddenly his steed snorting leaped up 
 
 Athwart a shattered caisson of the foe 
 
 And cleared all at one bound precipitant 
 
 In equine exultation at its feat. 
 
 For with its rider it had seemed to feel 
 
 Just there a flow of earth-born ecstasy 
 
 Which Lincoln had to word out of his heart, 
 
 Though half in dreamery he voiced his thrill: 
 
 1 So my imagination leaps to fact : 
 
 Broken at last the Fatal Line I pierce, 
 
 And I am crossing it myself at will ; 
 
 Even Old Sorrel flaps his wings for flight. 
 
 Just here it opens wide and lets me through 
 
 Where it resisted fiercely to the end. 
 
 Its very head seems rifted mortally 
 
 Which in my dream I saw uprear 
 
 And tongue its deadly lightenings at my hope 
 
 E en if its frantic body still may squirm 
 
 And throw the perilous coils of its despair 
 
 Against our close pursuing soldiery. " 
 
 So Lincoln glowed in his exultant mood 
 
 While Grant pre-occupied had hardly heard, 
 
 But let his duty give a random answer : 
 
 "Yes, I fear that Lee may yet escape, 
 
 And we shall have to hurry after him 
 
 Lest he with Johnson smite the troops of Sherman. 
 
CROSSING THE FATAL LINE. 135 
 
 But Lincoln could not halt his fervid fancy, 
 
 His soul kept seething over into speech 
 
 About this new transition of his life : 
 
 "For the first time I feel me what I am, 
 
 The People s very Self takes up mine own 
 
 Possessing me the individual ; 
 
 The Nation marches at my side, 
 
 My greater counterpart ideal, 
 
 The moment I may overpass this bound ; 
 
 A mightier spirit creeps through my weak brain 
 
 And weirdly domiciles itself within, 
 
 So that I hardly know my consciousness 
 
 Just now as I upon this barrier halt 
 
 And look up to the overhanging world. 
 
 But mark ! I see the Union rise and ride 
 
 Along with me across the Fatal Line 
 
 Which has no longer power to separate 
 
 Either the Nation or myself within, 
 
 If I but traverse once its ancient rift 
 
 As I do now upon this jumping steed." 
 
 So Lincoln oracled unto himself 
 
 While Grant, intent upon his business said : 
 
 1 I 11 tell you how the matter came about : 
 
 The battle of Five Forks was fought and won 
 
 By Sheridan, this town could not be held 
 
 After its flank was turned so we are here 
 
 Threading through these abandoned battlements. 
 
136 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 But Lincoln still was raptured with the thoughts 
 
 Which sprang up everywhere out of his path, 
 
 As he meandered through his goal now won : 
 
 I know me with the Nation s Law re-made 
 
 As I cross over this dividing line 
 
 Which also lies within the Constitution, 
 
 But which is now to be erased forever, 
 
 The fatal birthmark on that document. 
 
 The legislative soul of government 
 
 Is hence to be emancipated too 
 
 Under the universal hand of Law. 
 
 A lasting peace will then for us be possible 
 
 And likewise for the entire globe methinks, 
 
 If it can but be brought to do our deed. 
 
 Such was his far-off dreamful prophecy, 
 
 Which dared embrace all Time, not just this Now ; 
 
 Still he kept talking to his Genius : 
 
 1 1 1 would be Peace Peace of this Nation ours, 
 
 Peace of the world is forecast in my deed." 
 
 The General dropped behind a little way 
 
 And let his guest speak freely to himself: 
 
 "Whatever I may do belongs to all 
 
 Having somehow a continental sweep ; 
 
 My proclamation of enfranchisement 
 
 Turned out the trumpet of the final doom 
 
 Of slavery over this whole rounded earth, 
 
 Not merely ours was then adjudged by me 
 
 As I thought at the time, unwitting else." 
 
CROSSING THE FATAL LINE. 137 
 
 But to such heights Grant s mind was not allied, 
 
 The words were but a wind-like murmuring, 
 
 Which fell upon his ear emptied of sense, 
 
 The soldier in him simply made response 
 
 Of what lay uppermost within his mind : 
 
 "The work. is not yet done till Lee be taken, 
 
 I am expecting soon another fight, 
 
 In some anxiety I wait for news, 
 
 My two chief generals upon the front 
 
 Are Meade and Sheridan you know them too 
 
 They differ much in native character 
 
 And in their view of war s right strategy; 
 
 One is the East, the other is the West : 
 
 But I must use them both for this last act." 
 
 The words struck Lincoln to a gasp for speech 
 
 For they touched home to what he long had hidden, 
 
 He syllabled almost a thought forbid, 
 
 But while he held himself from letting out 
 
 One breath articulate, a messenger 
 
 Rode up in haste with a despatch for Grant 
 
 Who spurred his horse still glancing at the writ, 
 
 Nodding brief courtesy to the President: 
 
 "Meade will pursue the rear of fleeing foes, 
 
 But Sheridan will wheel round to the front 
 
 And cutting off retreat, will bag them whole. 
 
 Thus in our army still appears the breach 
 
 Which I must bridge by my authority 
 
 Ere we can overtake the flight of Lee." 
 
138 LINCOLN AT RICHMONDPART FIRST. 
 
 Off in a gallop the General wheeled vanishing, 
 
 And sped his steed away into the blue, 
 
 "When Lincoln now alone let go his speech 
 
 Which had before been undertowed by force, 
 
 But freed of press soon upward burst to words : 
 
 1 Still floats a wrack of the old difference 
 
 Into my vision of the victory 
 
 As soon as I have crossed the Fatal Line ! 
 
 Inside our own it yet doth show itself, 
 
 A momentary flicker of its last, 
 
 For Grant I feel is now upborne in spirit 
 
 To close by one quick stroke the double rift, 
 
 He looked his triumph as I saw him leave. 
 
 But here before me fallen Petersburg 
 
 I see, which held our troops so long at bay, 
 
 The very houses sigh their sufferings 
 
 And stir a sympathy with brick and wood 
 
 Which bullet-struck seem crying out to me ; 
 
 Look, visit too this Hospital/ 
 
 Still Lincoln had to stop and look aback 
 Surveying once again the Crossing past, 
 Where had upreared the war s grand obstacle, 
 Yea all his life its menace he had known; 
 And so there rose from his last depths this thought 
 I feel that I have rounded in myself 
 The deepest turn of mine own destiny : 
 What I have loved most dearly hitherto 
 
CROSSING THE FATAL LINE. 139 
 
 Has always perished from me, smit by Fate, 
 So that I came to think my heart s fond clasp 
 Was poisonous with mine own mortality. 
 But since I have o erpassed this Fatal Line, 
 And saved the Nation of my strongest love, 
 Methinks I have unfated Love itself, 
 And freed it from my stroke of tragedy, 
 Which me may take henceforth, but not my Love 
 But here we are mid wounded Petersburg." 
 
XIII. 
 
 Ramble Through Petersburg. 
 
 Lincoln was fain to hear and follow 
 
 The secret solicitation 
 
 From the suffering city, 
 
 He wandered through its avenues, 
 
 And peered into its alleys, 
 
 As if he saw and felt in the one spot 
 
 The sorrowed South entirely. 
 
 Hence had roared the cannon s greeting 
 
 Upon his first arrival, 
 
 Here had upreared the huge serpent 
 
 To loup him in his dream, 
 
 Betokening to him now 
 
 The little last resurgence valorous 
 
 Marking an era undone. 
 
 Hushed is the rampart s opposition 
 
 And void the menace of the battlements, 
 
 (WO) 
 
RAMBLE THROUGH PETERSBURG. 141 
 
 Yet everywhere are stamped the broken signs 
 Of that attack and defiant defense 
 Along the Fatal Line 
 Now being unfated. 
 
 In the President s one heart 
 
 Hose up both sides contending; 
 
 How joy and pain raged in him together 
 
 Repeating the whole war s fierce contention ! 
 
 Strewn on his path lay houses torn to shreds, 
 
 Cannon balls, musket bullets, 
 
 Fragments of shells, and sometimes whole ones, 
 
 Like hailstones of the storm ; 
 
 Trees were stripped of leaf and limb, 
 
 And sometimes splintered atwain; 
 
 Shattered were walls of brick and mortar, 
 
 Charred dwellings and oft their ashes 
 
 Silently mourned along his way. 
 
 Each ruin hit his eye a cut 
 
 Which pierced to his soul, 
 
 And at last the tense lips of his ache 
 
 Broke through his suppressive speech, 
 
 And he murmured low to himself 
 
 Hardly half -wording his tongue : 
 
 "This is a haunted city, 
 
 Its tenements form one aisled hospital 
 
 Alone in themselves, 
 
142 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Lined along the clogged streets like cots 
 
 Showing all sorts of gun-shot mutilations ; 
 
 Methinks they are wrenched with pain 
 
 And throb a fellow-feeling 
 
 With one another, 
 
 In a wave of insensible speech. 
 
 This gentlemanly edifice 
 
 Is shouting in agony 
 
 Over its broken pillars and cornice, 
 
 While yon modest home is shedding tears 
 
 Through its cluttered boards and shingles 
 
 In silent bereavement; 
 
 Even the log-hut is scuttled, 
 
 Showing a pile of disjointed timbers, 
 
 Or marked by a standing chimney only. 
 
 How these ruined houses 
 
 Strewing the highway symbol to me 
 
 The bedded rows of suffering soldiers 
 
 Through which I have just been passing ! 
 
 My heart beats in a pained response 
 
 To see this torture inanimate 
 
 Shown by man s social products 
 
 In which matter itself wins power to suffer. 
 
 Here is held before me a picture 
 
 Which casts an image of the South entire 
 
 Now prostrate with its wounds, 
 
 And with its spirit s humiliation. 
 
RAMBLE THROUGH PETERSBURG-. 143 
 
 Thus Lincoln tapping the sorrows of the time 
 
 Was touched to his melancholy, 
 
 Till he had to take flight from himself ; 
 
 Then he looked downward to the Earth 
 
 And saw the budding glad life of Spring, 
 
 As it smiled a bunch of fresh flowers at him, 
 
 While the greening grass laughed hope in his eyes. 
 
 Next he stopped in his stroll and gazed 
 
 In sympathetic admiration : 
 
 1 See this fine old mansion 
 
 Of colonial air and aristocratic, 
 
 With cracked columns like some Greek temple 
 
 Ruined by hungry two thousand years of Time 
 
 Soundlessly nibbling. 
 
 Yet this new overthrow was wrought in a moment 
 
 To the thunderous roar of battle ; 
 
 Tenantless now it seems, yet tearful 
 
 From its hurt not only of stone but of soul 
 
 Hark to its weeping marbles deserted ! 
 
 No, a darkey comes to its entrance grinning, 
 
 Not simply unharmed but free, 
 
 And to the rear is his saved cabin 
 
 Whence is looking his wife with lofty bandanna, 
 
 Mid picaninnies swarming populous 
 
 In aboriginal happiness 
 
 Of tattered costume many-colored. 
 
 Now on the steps of the Parian portico 
 
144 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 The former slave takes position, 
 
 Cringing his welcome in black to the bluecoats 
 
 With the shout of hosannah ; 
 
 Then he salutes the President, 
 
 Even calling him Massa Linkum, 
 
 "Whom he had heard to have come to town, 
 
 For the rumor had flashed as a lightning 
 
 Through all the secreted underworld 
 
 Of brooding darkeydom; 
 
 So he ducked bare-headed down to the earth 
 
 In obsequious gratitude native, 
 
 Hailing in broken phrases of Scripture 
 
 His emancipator, 
 
 "With his master s ruined mansion 
 
 In the tragical background. 
 
 Lincoln giving a friendly nod 
 
 Turned away from the view 
 
 Which so deeply coupled the boon and bane 
 
 Of the Nation s discipline, 
 
 And gave his wearied eyes pain-worn 
 
 A bountiful rest by a look at Nature 
 
 Now in her vernal vesture, 
 
 Which he thus sentimentalized : 
 
 * See there the hopefully smiling flowers 
 
 Spring up amid the abandoned guns 
 
 And wasted pieces of wagons, tents, and tools ; 
 
 The Fatal Line has been crossed this April day 
 
RAMBLE THROUGH PETERSBURG. 145 
 
 As the verdurous folds of grass 
 
 Are wreathing the wrecks of war 
 
 With fresh life and hope. 
 
 Mark yon lopping apple tree lofty 
 
 How badly it has been hurt ! 
 
 Its limbs are gored with many a bullet, 
 
 Still they are putting forth blossoms 
 
 Which will ripen as fruit in season, 
 
 And its whole body, yet sound though wounded, 
 
 Is making new wood at every break 
 
 For the healing of its injuries. 
 
 The fountain jets up jovial 
 
 To the sunshine in playful iridescence, 
 
 Bending me bright its little bow of promise. 
 
 So the springtide everywhere around 
 
 Bespeaks the fresh pulsebeat of creation 
 
 After the winter s crushing death, 
 
 Omening gloriously. 
 
 But even through the gladdening thrill 
 
 At Nature s buoyant rejuvenescence 
 
 Came breaking a wave of compassion 
 
 Worded in tremulous throbs, yet strong-willed : 
 
 " Still a shred of rebellion yields not! 
 
 Let it be pressed to the end ! 
 
 And yet the pity of it ! 
 
 True men fighting for their view of right 
 
 Even to the death ! 
 
146 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 I would like to save them perishing 
 
 From their own act, if I could ; 
 
 But it is their will I cannot 
 
 So let it be pressed to the end ! 
 
 Yet the pathos of brave men losing their cause ! 
 
 Bravest of men now driven to bay, 
 
 And men of conscience too, 
 
 Arrayed against conscience ! 
 
 Sympathy with human failure I feel, 
 
 For we all fail 
 
 Falling foul in our finitude ! 
 
 The pathos of failure 
 
 Is the pathos of man himself, 
 
 His original tragedy 
 
 Born of his being individual. 
 
 God loves failure methinks 
 
 More than he does success, 
 
 Making man so very fallible 
 
 "Who still has to win through his faults. 
 
 I compassion my foes in defeat 
 
 Which I myself have inflicted ; 
 
 My pity goes out to yon fellow-man 
 
 Even in his undoing ; 
 
 Still let it be pressed to the end, 
 
 Though it presses my heart out 
 
 To the last drop." 
 
XIV. 
 
 Lincoln and the Soldier. 
 
 Like a shout of self-willed pain 
 
 Cut through the air the keen paroxysm 
 
 From the lips of the President 
 
 Voicing the wrench of his conflict ; 
 
 Whereat a soldier, one of his guard, rode up, 
 
 A private of the cavalry 
 
 Who showed not only the duty of help 
 
 But also the bounty of love 
 
 In his look sympathetic 
 
 At the high sufferer there before him 
 
 Whelmed into sudden agony. 
 
 The soldier approaching besought 
 
 In right courtesy military 
 
 Yet with an undertone deeper than form, 
 
 Tenderly touched with the throb of affection : 
 
 "How can I serve you?" 
 
 (147) 
 
148 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 With poise of mien and mind restored 
 Lincoln addressed the comrade: 
 "Let us wheel about and scan once more 
 The barrier we have passed; 
 
 I am glad to get to talk with you, 
 
 The soldier s view I like always to hear, 
 
 As well as the great General s; 
 
 Have you been long in the service ? 
 
 The Blue-coat had settled his own opinions 
 
 Which he failed not to give to those near him, 
 
 Announcing the whole war s strategy ; 
 
 Thus he reviewed his campaigning: 
 
 I 1 Four years have I been bounding back 
 From this wall here crossed by our army 
 For the first time to-day, 
 
 And without any fight; 
 
 I started running from it at Bull Run 
 
 And have repeated the same exploit 
 
 Many times since then 
 
 Headed by our high Generals, 
 
 One after the other, 
 
 Little Mac and all the rest 
 
 Including Grant too, till now 
 
 When you have come to the Crossing. 
 
 Lincoln whisked his head around 
 And stared at the common soldier, 
 Who thus flung at him openly 
 
LINCOLN AND THE SOLDIER. 149 
 
 What he had kept hid in deepest privacy 
 
 Of his own daring darling thought-world. 
 
 "What !" he blazed up meteoric, 
 
 "Do you soldiers think that too, 
 
 And speak it outright among yourselves?" 
 
 1 I have heard it told and even sung 
 
 In tune to our crackling camp-fires ; 
 
 We, the common tilt-caps, own a common head 
 
 Which still is ours to think and speak, 
 
 Though soldiered by our oath 
 
 Into the obedient deed." 
 
 So said the man, and lifting his hilted sabre 
 
 He would retire with a shy salute, 
 
 Unwilling to outsay himself in full, 
 
 Which Lincoln noticed and exclaimed : 
 
 1 Stay, my comrade of thought, 
 
 You have more on tap in that head of yours, 
 
 Tell us the rest, let it freely run. 
 
 Still this ought not to surprise me ; 
 
 What I have known 
 
 I always have come to know 
 
 That the people knew 
 
 Better that I did." 
 
 The soldier slowed his voice reflectively: 
 
 Grant has changed since you have been here, 
 
 We all have remarked it; 
 
 That strange eclipse is now leaving him, 
 
150 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Which came with him over the Alleghenies, 
 And darkened his fame, aye his genius. 
 I saw war s demon ridge his rugged face 
 Only yesterday 
 
 With victory s smile which never to me 
 He had shown here before ; 
 He mounted aloft to his saddle 
 With the mighty presence of battle 
 As if he meant to charge full swoop 
 And break over the last opposing line, 
 As he did in the West at Donelson, 
 And more completely at Vicksburg, 
 But never here as yet." 
 
 The soldier shrank to hear the echo 
 
 Which smote him back from his own bold word, 
 
 And looked a silence terrified. 
 
 But Lincoln again propped up his courage : 
 
 "Go on, my man, you are the very spirit 
 
 Whom I would catch of this whole host; 
 
 You have something else to say, 
 
 As I read your reticence." 
 
 "Yes, I have," responded Blue-coat, 
 
 Grant will again rise up to be first 
 
 Out of this, his Eastern declination; 
 
 I saw the fire lit in his eye, 
 
 Leading him on to the goal 
 
 And with him this whole Potomac army 
 
 So bravely beaten off for years ; 
 
LINCOLN AND THE SOLDIER. 
 
 He will now force us to leap the rebel bound, 
 
 And inside ourselves to break through ourselves 
 
 Before we start homeward mustered out 
 
 After the victory final. 
 
 This is his crowning deed, 
 
 So we all deem it, and I hope 
 
 To carry back to mine own New England 
 
 The triumph of the Union 
 
 In the Nation, and aye in myself. 
 
 The President stared silenced in the stun 
 
 Of unexpected revelation ; 
 
 The blue-coated folk already 
 
 Had found his nethermost secret out, 
 
 And knew it of themselves alone 
 
 Without his telling it ; 
 
 He threw his warmest heart-melting look 
 
 Which tapped God s own benediction, 
 
 And made it in a fervor flow 
 
 Over the man before him 
 
 As if to infuse his gratitude, 
 
 Though he could not broach a word. 
 
 But the soldier, touched to his soul s bottom 
 
 By that eternal glance, 
 
 Worded what lay deepest and last 
 
 In himself as spokesman: 
 
 One more throb drives my heart to utterance : 
 
 With the breaching of this barrier, 
 
152 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 You have won this army s love, 
 
 Which you had not before, let me dare say, 
 
 As I was one of them; 
 
 But now with a stroke of penitence 
 
 We soldiers recognize what you have striven 
 
 All these calamitous years, 
 
 As the right way only ; 
 
 Take my confession forgiven 
 
 May I be, and all of us 
 
 let me depart with your last blessing. 
 
 The soldier felt the voiceless absolution 
 
 And vanished mid the azure ranks, 
 
 As a drop into the cerulean ocean : 
 
 While Lincoln turned off to his quarters 
 
 In a tender flood of teary memories, 
 
 Reverying still along his path 
 
 The full day s retrospect : 
 
 Yes, that in which I take my pride, 
 
 The greatest fact of all to me is this, 
 
 The army here in the East at last 
 
 Has broken through its limit, 
 
 And thus it too has conquered Union, 
 
 Held fast itself no more in separation ; 
 
 To breach the dividing line without 
 
 It doth transcend the line within, 
 
 Which made impossible so long our victory, 
 
 Unless the defensive one, 
 
LINCOLN AND THE SOLDIER. 153 
 
 Whereby was left the rift just where it started. 
 
 So I shall celebrate in praise to God 
 
 This army s triumph over itself 
 
 Now marching across the bound of Fate 
 
 Which it could never do before. 
 
 Having unionized itself 
 
 It can hence help restore the Union 
 
 Which these colonial States made two, 
 
 Half-slave, half-free, 
 
 Forging the Nation s scission 
 
 Just in its unifying Law. 
 
 But now their soldiers here in arms, 
 
 Their present spirit s bearers, 
 
 Break down the old dividing wall 
 
 Within themselves and in the Nation too, 
 
 Becoming one at last. 
 
 And further let us round the period s trend: 
 
 In harmony with this military deed 
 
 The legislative representatives 
 
 Are erasing this same Fatal Line 
 
 Out of the dual Constitution 
 
 Making it one forever. 
 
 Then Lincoln glancing back at the serried ranks 
 Of the distant soldiery moving in blue 
 Which azured all the horizon round 
 Turned to soliloquize his miracle : 
 What a knowing mass atomic 
 
154 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Is this self- willing army ! 
 
 It gives me the hope anew 
 
 That Government of the People 
 
 By the People, for the People 
 
 Shall not perish from the Earth. 
 
 For the common man, the common soldier 
 
 Feels the decree of the Presence supreme 
 
 Conscious of it as well as I. 
 
 So I know my most hidden conceiving 
 
 Begotten of the Folk-soul itself." 
 
 But what of the day most deeply 
 
 Came throbbing back to his memory, 
 
 Was the common soldier s confession, 
 
 With a droop of penitential sorrow 
 
 For past wrongs of his thought and word ; 
 
 Whereat Lincoln inly bespoke his heart: 
 
 "What I so long have sought in vain 
 
 Has come to me at last : 
 
 I have won this army s love 
 
 Just at the Crossing of the Line 
 
 As shown by many tokens 
 
 Prophetic of the end. 
 
 And now a deeper recognition 
 
 Than even this which I have just heard 
 
 Doth seem to hover o er me, 
 
 Foreshowing mine the atonement vaster, 
 
 With God himself." 
 
XV. 
 
 The Lady Eulalia Lovelace. 
 
 "What a recurrence of by-gone antiques 
 
 Have I stumbled upon just here ? 
 
 This hedge winding along the highway 
 
 I have somewhere seen before now 
 
 And from its matted greenery 
 
 Have plucked a leaf as I do this, 
 
 Raising it to my lips to smack of its flavor. 
 
 And this same gate I have oped pushing inward, 
 
 Many a year ago, it seems. 
 
 Yet I stood never upon this spot before 
 
 In waking consciousness. 
 
 See this flower-hemmed walk ! 
 
 Hark to its pebbly patter under my tread ! 
 
 And yon rounded clump of roses 
 
 Gushing red to the bountiful kisses 
 
 Of the prolific sun of the springtide ! 
 
 (155) 
 
156 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 I am only repeating myself in all this ; 
 
 Why should I hither be brought 
 
 To live over what I once lived 
 
 Where, I wonder? 
 
 But look! the identical edifice 
 
 With its broad stone steps, fluted columns, 
 
 And spacious veranda of open prospect ! 
 
 I see it rise up from my soul, 
 
 The original image 
 
 Again in my prototypal New Salem. 
 
 So Lincoln jetted his words to the sunshine 
 
 Tapping his own Artesian fountain 
 
 In the brooding depths of memory. 
 
 With a small escort of horsemen 
 
 He listed to see a bit of the land 
 
 That lay around Petersburg. 
 
 Thus for several miles he journeyed 
 
 Scanning the marks of the war 
 
 As writ on the face of the country. 
 
 Of a sudden he rode mid a landscape 
 
 Familiar in aspect, 
 
 As if he had known it from youth. 
 
 The fence, the yard, the garden he viewed, 
 
 Yet strangely felt it to be a review, 
 
 The prospect shifted to retrospect, 
 
 And with each object of vision 
 
 Kan an under-current of revision, 
 
THE LADY EULALIA LOVELACE. 157 
 
 So that all his outer cognition 
 
 Fell at once swallowed up 
 
 In a far-off inner recognition, 
 
 Which still he could not identify. 
 
 But when he came to see the full front 
 
 Of the lordly colonial mansion 
 
 Which centered the landscape, 
 
 There rose a sun-up of reminiscence ; 
 
 He knew just where he had been long since 
 
 In its hospitable presence. 
 
 So he said to himself 
 
 Mid a concourse of feelings recurrent, 
 
 Which he had felt many years before : 
 
 "I have often ascended these steps 
 
 As I am doing just now; 
 
 I have knocked at this door, 
 
 Aye this very door with its bright brass knocker 
 
 And have stood waiting under this lintel 
 
 A thousand miles from here 
 
 And ten thousand days from now, 
 
 On Sangamon Hill, I can remember, 
 
 Where I pre-enacted unconscious 
 
 These actions of mine to-day, 
 
 Even this stopping to wait, 
 
 And fore-told myself thus, 
 
 Quite to the tread and the gesture. 
 
 How I seem imitating myself ! 
 
158 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PATtT FIRST. 
 
 But here follows the next in order. 
 
 The black woman-servant opened the door 
 
 Peeringly at the knock ; 
 
 She too, with head-dress of flaming bandanna 
 
 Had often done the same service 
 
 To the youth Abraham Lincoln, 
 
 She or her dark-faced counterpart, 
 
 When he used to call at the mansion 
 
 Of the Lady Eulalia Lovelace. 
 
 The President, asking to see the mistress, 
 Entered into the parlor circumspecting ; 
 How he looked about him in wonder ! 
 For there too he had been before, 
 Perchance in a dream of previous days, 
 Or it might have been in another life. 
 But things the same to the senses 
 Different seem in meaning now ! 
 Heirlooms of English pattern 
 Centuries backward in time, 
 The gentle family s coat of arms 
 With heraldic emblems of honor, 
 And little keepsakes of pottery 
 And grotesque porcelain 
 Divulged the owner s taste and class ; 
 Old pictures still hung on the walls, 
 Visaging ancestors high-born and haughty, 
 The cavaliers and the lofty dames 
 
THE LADY EULALTA LOVELACE. 159 
 
 Of the times antique. 
 
 Trinkets of silver and gold had been but were not, 
 
 Having been snapped up as prizes 
 
 By the war s forager, blue and gray, 
 
 With impartial thievery. 
 
 But the decorated prayer-book 
 
 Of the Anglican Church lay untouched, 
 
 With King Charles medallion, 
 
 Hinting old history over the sea. 
 
 Lincoln glanced keen at the aged things 
 
 With a new commentary : 
 
 1 Still that fight of the Cavalier and Puritan 
 
 For this young hemisphere ! 
 
 The ideal here is aristocratic, English, 
 
 Against democratic America, 
 
 And this war is a turn of it 
 
 In ever-recurring sequence. 
 
 Yet I have to note as most prominent 
 
 That pictured officer yonder, 
 
 Having one wall to himself 
 
 In blue uniform epauletted and sworded ; 
 
 The same I was wont to look on 
 
 In the drawing-room at New Salem 
 
 Of hallowed memory. 
 
 Then his eye dropped to the table 
 
 Where he saw another familiar memento 
 
160 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 An old album, which he threw open ; 
 
 His first look was caught by two autographs 
 
 Together side by side interwound 
 
 In many a flourish of pencraft, 
 
 As if locking their tender curves of arms 
 
 His own and Ann Rutledge s. 
 
 He sank back into his chair 
 
 Remembering the when and the where 
 
 Of the dear other days 
 
 While the seas swelled over his eyes 
 
 In the hurricane of his heart. 
 
 The gracious lady of the mansion 
 
 Had entered the drawing-room 
 
 In the dignity of silence 
 
 Quite unnoticed of her rapt visitor, 
 
 And near him stood as if waiting, 
 
 While he sighed the old tale to himself : 
 
 "Ah well do I know the house, the room, 
 
 And the central glory, the mistress, 
 
 Famed for her kindness to all suffering 
 
 And for her service of sympathy 
 
 To lovers, to us twain, 
 
 The very children of Fate ! 
 
 Would that I might face to face in this room 
 
 Behold her once more 
 
 The Lady Eulalia Lovelace ! 
 
 He sprang up at the name 
 
 With its musical echo through hours far-away 
 
 Of reverberant memories 
 
THE LADY EULALIA LOVELACE. 161 
 
 Attuning life s holiest thrills : 
 
 There stood before him the Lady herself, 
 
 Paled to features angelic with years, 
 
 And with time s sorrows. 
 
 Still the former lines shone out 
 
 Through the white tender wrinkles traced 
 
 By life s hardest renunciation. 
 
 This was her early Virginia home 
 
 And that of her high-bred ancestors, 
 
 To whose estate she had returned 
 
 Nearly three decades ago, 
 
 From her residence on the frontier, 
 
 The palaced hill of the Sangamon 
 
 Where lay Lincoln s idyllic world, 
 
 Of which she was the Queen-mother. 
 
 Her husband had been officer 
 
 In the old National army, 
 
 Had taken part in the Indian wars 
 
 Along the wild borderland, 
 
 To w r hich he had brought his young wife 
 
 From her old Virginia home 
 
 To dare the new life of the West. 
 
 There he built her a mansion 
 
 On the point of a prairie hillock 
 
 Overlooking the Sangamon and New Salem, 
 
 With a hospitable air which deigned 
 
 An obliging smile of primacy. 
 
 That structure was copy exact 
 
162 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Along with, its hedge-rows and flowers, 
 
 Of her ancient family residence 
 
 Near the royal river James, 
 
 A centuried home of memory 
 
 In annals of first Virginia. 
 
 But farther back runs the history, 
 
 To a manor of old England 
 
 With its mansion of hoar gentility 
 
 And welcoming portico lordly columnar, 
 
 Which had shipped across the Atlantic, 
 
 Overlooking the Sangamon from the Severn 
 
 In its circuit of the globe 
 
 Meanwhile weaving itself on the way 
 
 Into the life of young Abraham Lincoln, 
 
 Whose golden secret of first love, 
 
 She had recognized in both hearts, 
 
 Herself well witting of love. 
 
 But here she stands saluting her guest 
 
 With ironical tinge of high-bred banter 
 
 Which rippled a smile through the lines 
 
 Of her deeply sorrowed features : 
 
 "So our story-telling rail-splitter, 
 
 The darling wag of the Sangamon, 
 
 And of its leveled prairies 
 
 Has risen to be the towering President 
 
 Of the whole United States, 
 
 And the conqueror too of Virginia, 
 
THE LADY EULALIA LOVELACE. 163 
 
 The ancestress stately of great men, 
 
 Even of you not the least. 
 
 Along with her, let me confess, 
 
 I and mine have gone down life s ladder 
 
 While you have mounted dizzily. 
 
 Still a most hearty welcome hitherward, 
 
 Hail to your gentle benevolent presence ! 
 
 Lincoln s voice melted to a tremulous solace 
 
 As he, tendering tearful his eyes, replied: 
 
 "Be of good cheer, my Lady 
 
 You will be comforted 
 
 And your Virginia will worthier rise 
 
 From her discipline ; 
 
 I have helped her even unwilling, 
 
 Perchance have saved her from her own fate, 
 
 And you I hope yet to bless 
 
 You not un willing. " 
 
 Lady Eulalia tuned more pleasantly 
 
 Her voice and her face 
 
 As she started backward recalling the past : 
 
 "Yes, you center the circle for me 
 
 Of the little New Salem world, 
 
 Whose largest event on my memory blooms 
 
 When you with the sword were girded 
 
 Of the chivalrous Eutledges 
 
 By the hand of the young lovely Ann 
 
 Their high-bred daughter. 
 
164 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 I felt then the forewarning throb 
 
 As from a glowering Heaven over the land, 
 
 When you spoke with a far-off glance 
 
 That you might have to march the other road, 
 
 Away from Black Hawk s country ; 
 
 And the crowd shouted : You be our leader ! 
 
 How often have I called up that village scene 
 
 Pre-figuring all of the mighty present 
 
 With you as its head and its heart ! 
 
 It rose in my revery forthright 
 
 Just as you rapped at the door, 
 
 With a knock sounding backward till then, 
 
 For I had heard you were here 
 
 In this our Petersburg. 
 
 Lincoln sat brooding before her 
 
 In a responsive rapture of mood 
 
 As she went on dreamily fabling : 
 
 1 I feel that I then forelived 
 
 Many a turn of my after-life 
 
 In that oracular short-lived New Salem, 
 
 A town presageful of destiny 
 
 Unto all its people, 
 
 And sir, to you." 
 
 Lincoln mused a pensive reply : 
 
 "That village s soul was born to be 
 
 An intimation of what is coming, 
 
 A gleam of eternal reflection; 
 
THE LADY EULALIA LOVELACE. 165 
 
 It ordained me, a drifting lad, 
 Into my future career, 
 Unfolding straight from then till now, 
 Yet with many a turn back into itself 
 Not only in memory but in deed." 
 
 The Lady arose and unlocked a casket 
 
 From which she took a package of letters : 
 
 11 These I have kept as your fortune s foretokens, 
 
 Addressed to me outwardly from Vandalia, 
 
 But inwardly to a young lady, 
 
 When you as a youthful legislator 
 
 Had gone thither in hope; 
 
 They reveal your tide at its turn 
 
 Preluding your life s whole drama 
 
 Even until to-day, 
 
 Perchance hinting the final scene 
 
 To be enacted to-morrow; 
 
 Only yesterday I was reading in them, 
 
 Thinking of your arrival hither, 
 
 And its daring fulfilment. 
 
 I glimpsed again the mulberry tree in bloom, 
 
 And the seat deftly plaited of grapevines 
 
 Made just for two under the leaves 
 
 Love s half-hidden trysting-place 
 
 Which I could spy from my upper window, 
 
 And the happy pair embowered." 
 
166 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 Lincoln s eye misted suddenly 
 
 While his softened syllables cadenced his heart : 
 
 "My most blissful moment of life 
 
 And yet the most fateful ! 
 
 Loftiest joy of the earth 
 
 Sistered with deepest sorrow! 
 
 That I know as my lot : 
 
 Whomever I love is torn from me, 
 
 My whole affection engulfs, entombs ! 
 
 It has always slain my dearest and best ! 
 
 I have become afraid of my love, 
 
 It makes the loved one tragic, 
 
 And its dark demonic companion 
 
 Is Death. 
 
 Thus the distant chord of the old Fate 
 Vibrated mightily in the present 
 Through the cycled years intervening. 
 The Lady s heart quivered to words: 
 Deeply sympathetic in echo : 
 "You are not alone in your lot, 
 The wife feels it and the mother ; 
 My fondest, the youth of my early love, 
 Was bloodily slain by the Indian 
 In soldier s service on your frontier; 
 There hangs his picture, you know it outside, 
 But here within he still lives. 
 Two infant boys he left me, 
 
THE LADY EULALIA LOVELACE. 167 
 
 Dearest copies of himself 
 
 Whom I brought back to the East 
 
 From the rude Western borderland, 
 
 To be reared in their ancestral home. 
 
 But through them I have been deluged 
 
 With the ever-redoubling sorrows of a mother 
 
 In this terrible war. 
 
 One of them fell in his blood at Gettysburg 
 
 Mid the deadly charge of Pickett ; 
 
 He was left dying on the field 
 
 And rests in an unknown Northern grave. 
 
 My other, my last hope, was lately shot 
 
 In the battle at Fort Stedman 
 
 Over yonder almost under my eyes; 
 
 But he was not fatally hurt, I hear, 
 
 And lies in a Richmond hospital 
 
 On the way of recovery. 
 
 Would that the mother might see him again 
 
 And nurse him with her love ! 
 
 Lincoln seized his note-book 
 
 And scribbled down a brief order 
 
 Signed by the President of the United States 
 
 And Commander-in-chief of the Armies; 
 
 Handing it to her, he said : 
 
 "Take that and follow its directions, 
 
 It will bring you to a worthy old man, 
 
 Whom you know from the past ; 
 
168 LINCOLN AT RICHMONDPART FIRST. 
 
 He will tell you about the last moments 
 
 And the resting-place of your elder son 
 
 Fallen far away in the Northland. 
 
 The Lady took the paper and glanced, 
 
 When she was moved to a deeper strain: 
 
 "Let me confess to you my repentance ! 
 
 My return to Virginia was a mistake, 
 
 From your free-born North- West; 
 
 I have often regretted the step 
 
 Which was urged upon me 
 
 By my kindred here, good but old-timed, 
 
 And somewhat out of tune with themselves. 
 
 I never could quite get back into line 
 
 And feel at home in the ancient tradition, 
 
 After breathing that buoyant air of yours 
 
 There in the Westerland 
 
 Unladen of the past. 
 
 Nor could I like slavery again 
 
 Whose day of reckoning wrathful 
 
 I felt to be not far away ; 
 
 And I still loved the whole country, 
 
 Aye, just the Union, 
 
 In whose service my husband had died, 
 
 Steeping with blood his uniform blue, 
 
 Which I ever keep before me 
 
 In his portrait yonder caressing me, 
 
 As I caress it. 
 
THE LADY EULALIA LOVELACE. 169 
 
 Hark! it speaks to me now 
 
 In a silent look of prophetic sorrow." 
 
 Lincoln s eyes fell to a muse as he turned, 
 
 And his tongue attuned his reply: 
 
 "Yes, many of us from the young North- West 
 
 Are paying a visit of duty 
 
 To our old political mother, God bless her, 
 
 By some tie drawn to her deeper than knowledge." 
 
 Whereupon continued the Lady 
 
 Overflowing with reminiscence again : 
 
 "That thought you flashed out long ago 
 
 In a speech before your fellow- villagers ; 
 
 I heard it as I was standing once 
 
 On the porch of a neighbor ; 
 
 You hailed the migration rolling westward 
 
 And raptured a startling apostrophe : 
 
 You all will be turning around with the years, 
 
 Going back to those first States whence you came, 
 
 Transforming them into your image of freedom, 
 
 Working the old over into the new, 
 
 Re-making even the sovereign Law 
 
 And transmuting the Slave-State to Free-State; 
 
 Thee too, Mother Virginia, 
 
 May I yet visit thee freed ! 7 
 
 So you f antasied far above our low heads ; 
 
 How well do I understand it now ! 
 
 You are yourself the highest example, 
 
170 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART FIRST. 
 
 You here in my presence, 
 
 Having returned to your grandfather s State 
 
 Re-bearing it into the Union, 
 
 And making it free, 
 
 Aye, enfranchising me." 
 
 11 Richmond is fallen" rose a shout outside, 
 
 Whereat Lincoln sprang up from his day-dream, 
 
 And threw open the door ; 
 
 From his mounted escort sounded the cry : 
 
 11 Richmond is fallen! news just come!" 
 
 Flamed up Lincoln responsive : 
 
 "I must go thither at once 
 
 And take my seat in the fallen Capitol 
 
 To stay the swoop of destruction, 
 
 Helping perchance to renew it 
 
 With all of the South." 
 
 The Lady clutched fast the precious paper 
 
 Given her by the President, 
 
 Who seeing her motherly act and look 
 
 Tuned his voice sympathetic: 
 
 "We shall find each other at Richmond 
 
 By the cot of your boy convalescent ; 
 
 We shall look back again at the Past, 
 
 As we saw it in little New Salem creative, 
 
 Mightily bearing the Present, 
 
 The atom waxing the giant. 
 
 Good-bye till then I must be off 
 
 With these troopers on a gallop, 
 
 For Richmond is fallen. 
 
art 
 
 The Fall of Richmond. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 "Richmond is fallen!" floated down the James 
 
 In pulses thousandfold upon the air, 
 
 And eddied round and round in jovial whirl 
 
 Past every headland of the stream and valley, 
 
 Tongued with the myriad talk of heady Rumor, 
 
 Until it grew a buzzing swarmery 
 
 Winging round Lincoln s hat at Petersburg. 
 
 The President spoke up a note of power : 
 
 "Yes, thither I must hurry off to bear 
 
 The Presidency whole and making whole 
 
 Of these United States now integrate, 
 
 For broken is the battling stubborn bound, 
 
 And I have crossed at last the Fatal Line, 
 
 Just here upon this very spot to-day. 
 
 At Richmond, the revolted Capital 
 
 (in) 
 
172 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 I must install myself Chief Magistrate 
 
 In place of the Executive now fled, 
 
 And dedicate the Capitol anew 
 
 Bringing my presence of authority, 
 
 Which means the Nation sovereign once more, 
 
 And aye, the greater boon, enfranchisement." 
 
 While Lincoln waiting sat upon the bank 
 
 He felt a change revolving in himself, 
 
 As he gazed at the crinkling curls of water 
 
 Which crisped before him on the speeding James; 
 
 He harked its babbling metamorphosis 
 
 And dreamed himself into a spectacle 
 
 In which he saw the hoary River-God 
 
 Kise out the stream-bed to an airy form 
 
 Toning the impress of a voice within ; 
 
 Hail Lincoln, now my President, 
 
 But not before, till this day s Crossing done! 
 
 In freedom s land I have been long in bonds; 
 
 Eight generations have I witnessed here 
 
 Since that first slave-ship anchored over there 
 
 Upon a spot within thine eyesight s stretch ! 
 
 Hark to the roistering ripple of my freedom, 
 
 As my full waters gush their hidden heart 
 
 Saluting thee their Liberator too." 
 
 The still pulsations of the words within 
 Beat on the chords of Lincoln s memory, 
 
PROLOGUE. 173 
 
 Stirring his soul to a response unvoiced : 
 
 stream, oft have I felt and glimpsed your truth, 
 
 Dumb nature too aspires for liberty, 
 
 The goal pursued of all created things. 
 
 But that which hammers me with thumps of wonder 
 
 Is your great change of spirit toward me now 
 
 From what you showed when I was here before, 
 
 Paying a visit to McClellan s army 
 
 Where it sank beaten back upon your banks, 
 
 Betokening a world s paralysis. 
 
 How surly looked you then with scowl and scoff 
 
 As I, bowed deathward by that huge repulse, 
 
 Groaned on your shore of wrath and watched your 
 
 waves 
 
 Aristocratic with disdain of me ! 
 Such was the greeting of aversion then 
 But now your look bears to me e en a prayer, 
 Which supplicates me for a fresh relief ; 
 Speak out in your soft undulations tuned 
 To thrill me to your aspiration new, 
 For my soul sweetly hears your river-notes 
 Breathing on it like worded syllables." 
 
 Whereat there rose a murmurous overflow 
 Which with the wavelets rippled into speech : 
 "0 Liberator, heal me one and whole, 
 Integral make this my young liberty ! 
 For up my stream still lies a thralling bound 
 
174 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 Which I beseech thee to forge through and quell. 
 Down here within thy presence I am free, 
 My fetters on both banks of me fall broken, 
 Ungyved my limbs are sporting in their hope, 
 But yonder up my bed at Drewry s Bluff 
 The shackles still enslave my active flow, 
 There o er my flood is drawn the Fatal Line 
 Which you must cleave and cross ere you reach 
 Richmond. 
 
 The strong petition tallied Lincoln s mood, 
 
 It touched the very center of his thought 
 
 And probed the living pith of the whole war, 
 
 Intoned with the affectioned voice of prayer; 
 
 That was to him a Presence unforeknown 
 
 Surprising him upon the open strand, 
 
 Whereat bedumbed he waited for himself 
 
 To take possession of his vocables ; 
 
 But ere he could upgather speech, 
 
 The spirit lisped a fresh address beseeching : 
 
 1 President, I am but half disthralled, 
 
 Half slave, half free, I am divided still ! 
 
 The ancient rent in our first Union 
 
 Is stamped upon the very water of me 
 
 As it comes dashing down my channeled body; 
 
 free me as thou hast already freed 
 
 Thy grander Mississippi in the West, 
 
 Whose spirit once appeared in prayer to thee 
 
PROLOGUE. 175 
 
 As I do now, the genius of the James, 
 
 Imploring thee in fervid orison 
 
 To reave it of its rended river-soul 
 
 And to forever heal it to be whole. 
 
 Lengthwise that stream its larger scission ran, 
 
 While mine cleaves crosswise on my ruffled front ; 
 
 But still the higher franchise is the same, 
 
 Both acts are one supreme deliverance ; 
 
 And let me too foresay what I presage : 
 
 This is the last node of the Fatal Line, 
 
 Which thou wilt ever be invoked to break ; 
 
 On land thou hast already leaped the bound 
 
 Spurring thy steed across at Petersburg, 
 
 But now through me thou must mount up the way 
 
 Which leads to the all-broken Capital, 
 
 Whither thou art to bear thy Personality. " 
 
 The President arose to his full height 
 In honor of the River s majesty, 
 Voicing the weal of his authority : 
 "I know me come to make you whole, 
 And save your valley from its servitude, 
 To lift you out your halfness I now haste. 
 Captain where is my boat ? I must away, 
 The little fleet to guide and guard get ready." 
 Still through the clatter of the heaving-off 
 A voice throbbed from the palpitating stream 
 And smote the deeper man to will its word : 
 
176 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 11 President, emancipate me too 
 One with thy mighty river of the West! 
 Make universal here thy freedom s deed, 
 And integral weld my young liberty, 
 Aye crown thy final mastery of Fate 
 Bursting my fettered bound, President/ 
 
I. 
 
 Up the James. 
 
 See the fluttering flotilla 
 
 Wheeling away in glee from the wharf, 
 
 As it mounts on the stream like a steed 
 
 To race up the river to Richmond, 
 
 Flaunting its flags in the breeze, 
 
 That it make the won goal of the war, 
 
 In patriotic ectasy. 
 
 The center of busily puffing smoke-stacks 
 
 Is the little steam-pushed craft, 
 
 In whose center uprighted again 
 
 Stands the tall President 
 
 Eagerly eyeing ahead from the deck 
 
 Over the stretch of the gossipy wavelets, 
 
 Which seem to whisper a welcome, 
 
 While chattering idly among themselves; 
 
 As he gazed, he broke into words : 
 
 (177) 
 
178 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 "This is, then, the great fulfillment 
 
 Of the Nation, of the age, even of me! 
 
 "When I issued that first Proclamation, 
 
 Little did I foresee this goal 
 
 To which the Powers were bearing me on, 
 
 Directing events from their upper conclave. 
 
 To them I have been going to school, 
 
 Learning their supernal decree 
 
 In the fleeting Now, 
 
 God s pupil most teachable 
 
 Methinks I have learned my lesson ; 
 
 And may I not say to myself, 
 
 I have taught it in turn to my people." 
 
 So Lincoln listened a moment 
 
 To himself speaking from far-away 
 
 Through the soul s ventriloquism; 
 
 Then flinging an eye-shot off to the right 
 
 He saw the wooded slopes of the Malverns 
 
 Breaking out into laughter of April-green, 
 
 As if rollicking breezy salutes 
 
 To the President, now of success. 
 
 But he thought of the carnage 
 
 That once reddened those hill-sides, 
 
 And he recalled his former visit 
 
 Not two years since, 
 
 Plunging him downward into the cave 
 
 Of his blackest melancholy j 
 
UP THE JAMES. 179 
 
 Even now for a minute the nighting goblin 
 Fleeted before him with outsharpened beak 
 As if to vampyre him again 
 Into its pitiless gloom. 
 
 Still he whisked off the wings of the Hell-bird 
 By a valorous stroke of his soul, 
 Fighting away his dread Fury of life 
 Which rose from within unawares. 
 
 Turning he looked up the river 
 
 Toward the heaven-held crown of his labor, 
 
 Now beshone with hope s sun above, 
 
 And beflowered with love s earth below. 
 
 But look again ! on the water a new defiance ! 
 
 A row of piles has waylaid the stream 
 
 Forbidding its passage ; 
 
 Only at the middle oped a small mouth 
 
 Gaping warily, 
 
 Which had a treacherous look 
 
 As if guarded secretly underneath 
 
 By unseen explosives. 
 
 Still through that aperture s jaws 
 
 Suspected of treachery, 
 
 All the vessels must pass or turn back, 
 
 Undone of their journey. 
 
 Again the River-God hazily rose 
 Beside Lincoln up from a ripple, 
 
180 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 Seen by him but by nobody else, 
 And spake in a full-flowing voice 
 Heard by him but by nobody else : 
 "0 Liberator, here is the line foretold 
 Which divides me in twain above, below, 
 Making me half slave, half free ; 
 That scission everywhere in our land 
 Thy call is to heal whole 
 By thy presence remedial. 
 President, this is my Fatal Line 
 Which too thou art to transcend 
 That thou be fully thine own 
 Capping destiny 
 
 On the Capitol s height at Richmond. 
 This is the last time thou need cross it 
 Before winning the prized city, 
 Which else will crumble to ashes; 
 See now the Judgement s flames 
 Liberator save it, save me ! 
 
 Lincoln distressful shouted aloud 
 
 To the surprise of the busy by-standers : 
 
 "Clear me thy oracle, Semblance divine, 
 
 Stay and tell me thy ghostly message, 
 
 For it hits mine own dark foreboding 
 
 Of some demonic destroyer 
 
 Now kindling his work." 
 
 But the vision slid away thinning 
 
UP THE JAMES. 181 
 
 Into a formless fog-bank 
 
 That lay asleep on the river, 
 
 Out of whose feathery cloud as a bed 
 
 Stretched forth an arm fisted, 
 
 "Whose forefinger pointed skyward upstream 
 
 At a serpentine smoker coiling on high 
 
 Of venomous aspect, 
 
 Lincoln chilled at the sudden portent 
 
 Which kept getting huger in bulk 
 
 And shaping itself more dragonish 
 
 With gesturing menace infernal. 
 
 Soon he broke out to the Captain on deck : 
 
 "Drive your boat to the passage and through it, 
 
 I must haste to the flaming source 
 
 Of yonder Hell now bursting up heavenward ; 
 
 That smoky serpentine Satan 
 
 Is spiraling over Eichmond 
 
 Which is feeding it with conflagration. 
 
 Methinks it pictures the Arch-fiend 
 
 With his murkiest cohorts 
 
 Devouring the Capital. 
 
 I must save it to the rescue 
 
 Here our craft comes first let the rest follow 
 
 Wedge through the narrow mouth, 
 
 Split the barrier, mauling it with your boat 
 
 Swifter, Captain. " 
 
182 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 But the vessel was trapped by the sides, 
 
 Clamped fast in the jaws of the entrance, 
 
 As it swung around in the current 
 
 And closed tight the opening, 
 
 So that the lesser boats could not pass 
 
 To the upper stream. 
 
 "Turn back," cry Captain and crew, 
 
 Thinking of the President s safety. 
 
 "Turn back greater peril ahead, 
 
 Torpedoes are strewn here under the water, 
 
 Sharpshooters infest yonder hills, 
 
 Guerillas can swarm out from the shore 
 
 And capture the speedless row-boat 
 
 Which alone is now possible. 
 
 But Lincoln terribly thundered his voice 
 
 Wording the topmost command 
 
 Of the President of the United States: 
 
 "Fetch out the row-boat, 
 
 And man it with sailors as oarsmen, 
 
 I must dare this Crossing just here, 
 
 The final node of the Fatal Line 
 
 Which has so long withstood me in battle. 
 
 Then forward I say, to Eichmond ! 
 
 Once more and the last! 
 
 I would take it now with a leaky skiff, 
 
 And save it." 
 
 A barge was lowered into the current, 
 Twelve sailors handling oars leaped aboard 
 
UP THE JAMES. 183 
 
 With the whole United States 
 
 Personed in Abraham Lincoln, 
 
 And began pulling upstream. 
 
 Meanwhile the spiraling columns of smoke 
 
 Rising over the city of Judgment, 
 
 Roll denser, larger, more vicious, 
 
 Lapping red tongues of angry blazes skyward 
 
 As from the mouth of a nameless monster, 
 
 Devouring with Inferno s fiery gorge. 
 
 " Hurry," cries the impatient President, 
 
 I fear it will perish ere I may come, 
 
 Perchance by its very act, 
 
 From self-destruction it I would rescue; 
 
 Faster, faster, my lads, 
 
 Let me put my strength to this oar." 
 
 Then in his huge brawny rail-splitting knuckles 
 
 The President seized the helve 
 
 From a weakened tired-out sailor, 
 
 And dipped the long blade in the water 
 
 Heavily heaving forward the boat, 
 
 Whereat all the other oarsmen 
 
 Followed the high example, 
 
 As if filled with a fresh influx of power, 
 
 Far greater than their own little selves, 
 
 And overflowing from supernal sources. 
 
 "Hold! danger ahead! keep close to the shore!" 
 
 Suddenly shouts the outlooking pilot, 
 
184 LINCOLN AT RICHMONDPART SECOND. 
 
 As a dark smoking hulk of a boat 
 
 Floated to sight from upstream 
 
 In the distance descried. 
 
 Under the spy-glass it looked unmanned, 
 
 Perchance sent adrift for mischief, 
 
 With scattered blazes starting to creep out 
 
 Through its sides and its deck. 
 
 "An infernal machine sent to destroy us, 
 
 Let us wheel round at once 
 
 And bear you out of its peril s reach," 
 
 Rose a cry in common, 
 
 "Not to be thought of," yelled Lincoln, 
 
 In the fiercest growl ever heard from his throat, 
 
 This is the test of my life, 
 
 The Line must be crossed here too by me." 
 
 But in response to that last word, 
 
 The mightily emphasized me, 
 
 There followed a rumbling explosion, 
 
 Pieces flew in the air 
 
 The crew ducked down to their benches, 
 
 A fragment whizzed overhead to the stream, 
 
 And splashed up a ripple of water, 
 
 Not far from Lincoln s raised oar-blade, 
 
 And the floater whole no longer was seen, 
 
 Only some bits of its bobbing corpse 
 
 What was it ? Nobody hurt 
 
 But what could it mean ? 
 
UP THE JAMES. 185 
 
 " Forward more swiftly than ever," 
 
 Cried Lincoln, smiting deeper his oar, 
 
 And lurching the boat far ahead, 
 
 As he puffed his breath into speech : 
 
 What is it, you ask ? I soothsay it 
 
 The foresent omen of self-destruction 
 
 Borne me to bear a message 
 
 Of what is happening yonder, 
 
 In a world under doom." 
 
 Still the dun dragons of conflagration 
 
 Spat their spiteful sparks athwart the blue dome, 
 
 As if scintillating vengeance at God, 
 
 "While some of them fell on the boat, 
 
 And one angrily flew at Lincoln s tall hat 
 
 Singeing its silken gloss, 
 
 And then dropped extinct at his feet. 
 
 But the lambent wrath of those serpent tongues 
 
 Licked upward to gorgeous fire-works, 
 
 In a malignant carnival feasting 
 
 With all the fiends of Tophet. 
 
 Many were the shadowy shapes 
 
 Seen by the sympathetic eye 
 
 Coming and going on the black panorama : 
 
 Groups of soldiers vanishing dreamily, 
 
 Regiments marching into the gap of chaos, 
 
 Whole armies forming and fading mid abysses 
 
 Which cleaved under their feet ; 
 
186 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 A festival of destruction 
 
 Was eating up the doomed Capital. 
 
 Still the oar blades kept splashing merrily, 
 
 And the boat rocked nearing the wharf, 
 
 When Lincoln again looked up at the clouds 
 
 Writhing and rolling and coiling and crushing 
 
 So many demons grotesquing death, 
 
 Making Heaven s dome into Hell s crater upturned. 
 
 Behold the flames languishing, 
 
 And the dark dragons float away undone, 
 
 Exhausted or perchance sated of prey. 
 
 Now the smoke curls upward amain 
 
 Without the dare of its former malice, 
 
 While the city beacons its first glimpse, 
 
 Tokening still itself to be 
 
 Unto the anxious President. 
 
 But as he sharpens his eye intently, see! see! 
 
 Another image slowly limns itself 
 
 On the last murky cloud departing, 
 
 As if under doom. 
 
 He shuddered, he shrank, 
 
 But only for a moment; 
 
 He knows it well, it is himself, 
 
 His counterpart often seen hitherto 
 
 Even in the White-House, 
 
 And its meaning he forebodes 
 
UP THE JAMES. 187 
 
 As it fades off wistfully to the Beyond, 
 Like very mortality. 
 
 Now the boat strikes, the hawser is handed, 
 
 All get ready to leap from the benches 
 
 To the perilous bank, 
 
 Sworded and pistoled and gunned, 
 
 To guard the President saving thee 
 
 Against thyself, Richmond. 
 
II. 
 
 Under Doom. 
 
 Go back with me, Reader, 
 
 Some overfull hours of the time 
 
 And look on Lincoln s prime antagonist; 
 
 Tis President Davis at Richmond, 
 
 As he sets out for church of a Sunday morn 
 
 Delicious with April s balm 
 
 And the hope of Heaven. 
 
 But mark the telling concurrence ! 
 
 At the same hour the other President, 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, had mounted the Crossing 
 
 Of the Fatal Line, now breached and bared, 
 
 Encircling Petersburg. 
 
 The air was heavily laden 
 
 With rumors of bale, 
 
 Disaster kept streaming into the city, 
 
 From the lost field of Five Forks, 
 
 (188) 
 
UNDER DOOM. 189 
 
 The church-bells tolled moodily earthward 
 
 As from a frowning God. 
 
 But President Davis stemmed the lowering hour, 
 
 With tense-featured resolution, 
 
 Though he seemed to jerk suddenly 
 
 In a telepathic twitch 
 
 As he looked up at the Capitol, 
 
 Dimly conscious of the pivotal hap 
 
 Stinging him out of the distance, 
 
 For he boded a lurking presentiment 
 
 Of what Lincoln had done at last 
 
 Gone over the Crossing. 
 
 Then he addressed sternly himself: 
 
 "I shall not yield never! 
 
 Independence must win for my South, 
 
 I too shall arm the slaves, 
 
 Gaining their hearts with the promise of freedom, 
 
 From the masters who own them. 
 
 Separation is ever my watchword, 
 
 Slavery I no longer care for, 
 
 The dividing bound between the States 
 
 I shall yet furrow as deep as Hell, 
 
 Enthroning my God Disunion" 
 
 And thus he entered the church. 
 
 Meanwhile the other folk of the city 
 Are meditating their silent way 
 
190 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 To their several places of worship, 
 
 Remarking no laugh of the leaves 
 
 And hearing no song-bird of spring 
 
 Mid the fluttering twigs of the trees 
 
 Through the crush of suspense; 
 
 For over every soul seems hanging 
 
 The menace of judgment-day 
 
 About to befall. 
 
 And as they pass the Capitol Square 
 
 They behold an uncanny appearance: 
 
 The lofty new image pedestaled 
 
 Of Richmond herself aerial, 
 
 With looks agonized of penitence 
 
 Yet prayerfully upturning 
 
 As if before the Judge Himself. 
 
 Every person saw the semblance 
 
 Presageful of destiny, 
 
 For it was his own individually 
 
 While the common work of all, 
 
 A soulful statue to their vision 
 
 Yet wrought of their very souls. 
 
 President Davis rushed by it, 
 
 Facing its icy scowl of scorn 
 
 Which it flung down vengefully damning 
 
 Him as its primal misfortune. 
 
 How different was the people s reception 
 
 Of his Excellency, 
 
 When he uprose on this place 
 
UNDER DOOM. 
 
 Its installed first President 
 
 Mid myriad-throated acclamation. 
 
 But now he hurries away 
 
 Out of its demonic eye-shot of scath 
 
 As if to escape to the sanctuary 
 
 Beyond its unwholesome glances, 
 
 Taking refuge in his prayer-book, 
 
 Conning his supplications above 
 
 To the Sovereign of the Universe. 
 
 But hardly had he looked on the print 
 
 "When from beneath it uprose the one God 
 
 Strangely becoming twain 
 
 From a divine look of unity 
 
 Cloven wrathfully asunder: 
 
 The two Gods stood forth in armored anger 
 
 Eager to test in fight their divinity, 
 
 One smaller than the other, 
 
 But more aggressive and spit-fiery; 
 
 Each flung at the other thunder and lightning 
 
 With furious detonation of gunnery, 
 
 Over all the land near and far. 
 
 Between them was drawn a blood-lit line, 
 
 Which both sought in vain to transgress, 
 
 Each repelling the other 
 
 On many a field of carnage, 
 
 When suddenly the one Great God 
 
 Strode across the crimson boundary 
 
192 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 Overcoming his own self-division, 
 
 And appeared to be entering Richmond. 
 
 Yea, he is approaching the church 
 
 In his original oneness, 
 
 Oh ! he passes the door although with a stoop, 
 
 But no longer divided is seen, 
 
 Such as he once went forth 
 
 To the President s vision. 
 
 Behold, he comes forward to the same pew 
 
 Whose occupant is praying, 
 
 When Jefferson Davis is aware 
 
 Of the one supernal Presence 
 
 And springs up as if to defy it, 
 
 Even saying I challenge your right. 
 
 But before him stands a gray-clad officer 
 
 Cloud-faced with his news ; 
 
 Clenching the jaws in strong self-control, 
 
 He reaches a message from Lee : 
 
 "My line is broken in three places, 
 
 Let there be no delay, 
 
 Abandon the capital now." 
 
 The President reads it stout-eyed, 
 
 Without one tear s relenting, 
 
 And doorward starts down the aisle 
 
 In a suppressed quickstep, 
 
 Rushed after by all the worshippers 
 
 Who had forefelt the menacing cataclysm. 
 
UNDER DOOM. 193 
 
 Soon all the other churches were vacant, 
 
 And the people surging through the streets 
 
 In hysteric horror over the next thing 
 
 Through their very ignorance. 
 
 But the portentous image of Richmond 
 
 Holds yet upright on the Public Square, 
 
 Seen of all because their own it is also, 
 
 As well as that of the time. 
 
 Look! its aspect is shifting 
 
 Into throes of cynical desperation, 
 
 It seems to draw from its side a weapon, 
 
 Raising it towards itself for a stab, 
 
 As if making ready for self -infliction. 
 
 To the fleeing President it dares whisper 
 
 Its crushing disillusion: 
 
 "When you first came hither me glorifying, 
 
 I dreamed myself the dawning Capital 
 
 Of this whole Continent, 
 
 The chief city of the world ; 
 
 But behold what you have made me, 
 
 Me, the proud mistress of slaves 
 
 Mistressed now by my own slaves, 
 
 So that I curse me deserving damnation. 
 
 She fetched herself a passionate blow 
 
 As if at her own judgment, 
 
 With herself as executioner, 
 
194 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 Retributive of her godless deed 
 Of apostasy national. 
 
 Meanwhile the President lone is hurrying off 
 
 On a railroad train, 
 
 Having shipped his government 
 
 Toward anywhere Southward, 
 
 Behind the last fraying fragment 
 
 Of Lee s hungry but ever valorous army 
 
 Still seeking to piece the broken line of Fate 
 
 Under the very pinch of Doomsday, 
 
 And winning the prize 
 
 Of bravest soldiership 
 
 Athwart their famishing cause. 
 
 But forget not the final event 
 
 Symbolizing frankly the time 
 
 In bitter irony scoffing disaster: 
 
 Along with the flying Confederacy 
 
 To the train was driven the swarthy coffle-gang, 
 
 Negroes chained together for sale, 
 
 Now hustled off Southward ; 
 
 The last slave-pen was running from Richmond 
 
 In company with its President Davis; 
 
 But it could not get passage no room 
 
 So it dissolved to atomic freedom just there, 
 
 Never again to be fettered 
 
 In liberty s land undivided. 
 
UNDER DOOM. 195 
 
 But what is this appalling command 
 From departed authority desperate, 
 Bidding the rear-guard remain a few hours 
 For the work of destruction ? 
 "Burn the government s property: 
 Warehouses full of cotton and tobacco 
 Arsenals charged with powder and shell, 
 The war-craft in the river, 
 Set all afire, and leave to the victors 
 Ruin, blank ruin." 
 
III. 
 
 The Doom. 
 
 Now we may see the sinister dragon 
 
 Uncoiling skyward voluminous folds, 
 
 And uprearing its murky body 
 
 Vibrant with hundreds of flaming tongues 
 
 And with venomous serpentine hisses 
 
 Multitudinous as snake-haired Medusa: 
 
 Such Lincoln saw from his boat 
 
 While he was borne up the river 
 
 "Watching the vengeful cloud-wraiths writhing 
 
 Rebellious over Richmond. 
 
 In tense perturbation of soul, 
 
 For he longed to save the city damned, 
 
 Even if self-doomed, 
 
 From its own doom. 
 
 Public storehouses first were kindled 
 
 To pitiless conflagration, 
 
 (196) 
 
THE DOOM. 197 
 
 While the winds conspiring with flames 
 Scattered madly blazing cinders 
 Over the innocent house-tops, 
 Which began to crackle and blaze 
 Unhindered of hands, 
 For authority itself was burning, 
 And man s civic institution 
 Drooped helpless to ashes. 
 
 Now the rabble broke loose 
 
 From the grip of dominion s dread overhand 
 
 Which lay paralytic; 
 
 The underworld of a great city, 
 
 Aye of a great revolution, 
 
 And of its blood-letting legions, 
 
 At the most violent center volcanic 
 
 Belched up its dregs from their Stygian haunts, 
 
 Who started to surge through the streets 
 
 In a frenzy of freedom 
 
 Unbanded of order. 
 
 Intoxication now added its fury; 
 
 Barrels of liquor were seized from dram-shops 
 
 And emptied into the gutters, 
 
 Whence it was dipped and drunk by the mob; 
 
 But over the bedlam hear the roar of loud shots 
 
 And rapid of manifold gunnery ; 
 
 What new foe is attacking? 
 
 Tis the fired arsenal exploding itself 
 
198 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 In its own ammunition 
 
 Of powder and shell and bombs, 
 
 Committing suicide 
 
 With furious reverberation 
 
 Terrible trump announcing judgment. 
 
 But the revelry runs on madder 
 
 Stores are broken open and rifled, 
 
 Silks and broadcloths aristocratic 
 
 Are strown in the streets and trampled 
 
 In mere lust of destruction. 
 
 The rearguard of the fugitive army 
 
 Has quitted the city having set it ablaze, 
 
 And leaving it lawless 
 
 To wreak on itself its own damnation. 
 
 For behold a fresh accession from Hell! 
 
 Here come the freed jail-birds clamorous 
 
 "With ill-omened profanity, 
 
 Calibans cursing all order. 
 
 And on their heels another demoniac throng 
 
 Breaks into liberty 
 
 Over the wall of the penitentiary, 
 
 Seething revenge against laws of the State 
 
 As their foes of blood-feud; 
 
 The criminals of the whole Social System, 
 
 In striped suits and docked hair 
 
 Streak viperous with uncanny spots 
 
 The multitude and the landscape, 
 
THE DOOM. 199 
 
 Gloating in half -naked savagery : 
 
 Yelling, leaping, grimacing, scoffing, 
 
 Malign in their ecstasy 
 
 As fiends mid infernal flames 
 
 Hurrahing for Pandemonium, 
 
 Bent to undo civilization, 
 
 And help the damned world fly to pieces. 
 
 Meanwhile all people who still had homes 
 
 Or places of refuge to hide in, 
 
 Fled from the streets and whispered trembling 
 
 Behind locked doors and closed casements ; 
 
 Their orisons pleading for pity 
 
 And offering penace they lisped 
 
 To the Supreme Justiciary, 
 
 "Wrathful Punisher of the world s wrongs, 
 
 As they await with last resignation 
 
 The approaching hell-fire, or the time s devils, 
 
 Or perchance both together, 
 
 Humored with overflow grinning 
 
 Of Satanic mockery. 
 
 But still in their silent retreat 
 
 They could not help seeing lit in red glare 
 
 The self -vengeful image of Richmond 
 
 Eaising its daggered hand aloft 
 
 As if to pierce its own heart 
 
 Though not yet the high blow has fallen, 
 
 Still destruction s delirium rages, 
 
200 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 The conflagration widens its fiery swath, 
 
 Circling around the city within 
 
 Till its heart is quite eaten out, 
 
 And homeless families flock together 
 
 In famishing groups on the Public Square. 
 
 But see the mad river also blaze up 
 
 And rave with sudden explosive thunder 
 
 Symbolic boom of Last Judgment ! 
 
 Is it another foe approaching the city? 
 
 Yes a foe itself bombarding itself 
 
 In victorious defeat, 
 
 For under the lifting smoke can be seen 
 
 The rise and fall of ruinous fragments; 
 
 A fleet of gunboats riding on the water, 
 
 Larger and smaller, some unfinished, 
 
 Start up a self-cannonade by order ; 
 
 Hear the whiz of the missiles in air, 
 
 "With a Vesuvian flare and rumble, 
 
 Which turns for a frightful moment 
 
 The vast convulsion more frantic, 
 
 Then dies away on the billowy clouds ! 
 
 Now only some derelict rags of vessels 
 
 Can be seen tumbling over the streambed; 
 
 But look again at the omen ! 
 
 One of the boats has escaped 
 
 And unexploded dropped down the current; 
 
 What does it prognosticate 
 
THE DOOM. 201 
 
 Treachery, accident, Providence? 
 
 Slowly it floats into dimness of vision 
 
 Far down stream, when suddenly 
 
 A small flash, a faint report in the distance, 
 
 A wee wisp of smoke up curling, 
 
 Then nought its blank problem only remaining. 
 
 But this was the boat which Lincoln met, 
 
 Of itself bringing to him a message 
 
 As he was toiling up stream on his barge, 
 
 In pull with his open-lunged oarsmen. 
 
 Reporting at the right moment 
 
 It told him its tidings 
 
 In its own way of thunderous speaking 
 
 Just once a voice and a sign and then done 
 
 Doom s hieroglyphic, 
 
 "Which the President well interpreted 
 
 By his soul s secret cypher. 
 
 Such was the mighty crash outwardly, 
 
 But inwardly mightier, 
 
 Of an old human polity 
 
 Which had long ruled the land and its mind 
 
 "Worthily in many ways, 
 
 But could no more, being outdated 
 
 By Time s onward march 
 
 Toward the goal of History. 
 
 Still it would rule, if not the whole 
 
202 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 Then the part, or parts of the part, 
 
 And so fell into hopeless division 
 
 Counter to the Nation s great oneness 
 
 And destined to be still greater. 
 
 Thus Doomsday has fallen in judgment 
 
 Upon Richmond the Capital 
 
 And upon all the domains 
 
 Of which it was made the central Power. 
 
 Wide is the yawn of new Chaos, 
 
 A people s consciousness overthrown, 
 
 And to be slowly re-built, 
 
 An era s debacle now concentered 
 
 Can it be stayed even here 
 
 From its own cataclysmic submergence? 
 
 Hark ! the ominous tread of soldiery ! 
 
 Not the slow march but the quick-step 
 
 Hurrying hitherward ! 
 
 The vengeful semblance of Richmond 
 
 Tarries its right arm uplifted, 
 
 And turns its air-drawn head to listen, 
 
 Paling at some new apparition 
 
 More dreadful than ever. 
 
 So it fetches deep breaths expectant 
 
 Waiting a while for Hope s arrival. 
 
IV. 
 The Doom Lifting. 
 
 The Mayor of Richmond. 
 
 I have come to your lines as the chief magistrate 
 of our city to turn over to you our Capital, which 
 has been evacuated by the Confederate forces. 
 These two citizens have accompanied me to try 
 what we think our last hope. 
 
 Federal Lieutenant. 
 
 I am simply an officer on picket duty, with only 
 one company of soldiers some sixty; your re 
 quest must go to headquarters, which are at yonder 
 little frame house. But I have no doubt you will 
 be welcome. 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 I pray God it may be so I shall hurry thither. 
 Meantime from your friendly speech I may ven- 
 
 (203) 
 
204 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 ture begging you to push for the city in all dis 
 patch with what men you can gather on the spot, 
 in order to stay its destruction. There will be 
 no opposition to you, but a prayerful reception. 
 
 Federal Lieutenant. 
 
 Yes, I have been watching for some time the in 
 creasing smoke over yonder. I had begun to an 
 ticipate something. 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 The city is burning down, the whole of it, seven 
 hundred buildings are already destroyed, its very 
 heart is consumed, while the conflagration 
 broadens in every direction and there is no sal 
 vation without you who have been so long our 
 enemies. We beseech you now to capture us. 
 
 Federal Lieutenant. 
 
 Here comes a squad of cavalry on a scout to 
 ward your town. We shall tell them the situation 
 and then follow. 
 
 -* r 
 
 for. 
 
 Good-luck the first glimpse of it for many 
 hours. But you will need all your arms, for the 
 crowd in the streets has turned to pillage and 
 drunkenness. Shops are broken open, and whiskey 
 is flowing in the gutters from barrels whose staves 
 
THE DOOM LIFTING. 205 
 
 have been knocked in. But I must be off to see 
 your General; this citizen will guide you to the 
 Capitol Square from which your help can be best 
 extended. 
 
 Federal Lieutenant. 
 
 Forward, march double-quick to save Rich 
 mond at last. 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 General, I have come to request 
 
 General. 
 
 "We already know, Mr. Mayor, the import of 
 your visit. You see we are in the act of mouting 
 and on the point of starting for your city. But 
 come along, take this horse and ride with us; I 
 would like to hear from you about the evacuation. 
 Tell me how the fire started. 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 By command of Jefferson Davis, the fleeing Pres 
 ident of the Confederacy, who ordered all the pub 
 lic storehouses and arsenals to be set on fire in a 
 high wind. I heard of the order and tried to have 
 it rescinded or at least modified ; the General com 
 manding the rear-guard supported me. But my 
 request was rejected with a sneer that we were 
 trying to save our property for the Yankees. I 
 
206 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 cannot help feeling that Davis had a grudge 
 against the Capital which saw his discomfiture and 
 flight. 
 
 General. 
 
 Possibly you requited the feeling. But it is a 
 strange reversal: the defenders of Richmond have 
 become its destroyers and its destroyers are to be 
 its preservers. Well, permit me to say that some 
 thing of the sort to my mind has been lurking 
 underneath this whole war. 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 I have to confess that the destructiton goes 
 deeper than mere buildings; law and order are 
 also at an end, civic authority is in flames. The 
 prisons are thrown open, criminals run wild; but 
 when I saw convicts from the penitentiary stream 
 ing through the crowd, I slipped away to your in 
 vesting lines for help against these new enemies. 
 
 General. 
 
 Startling climax indeed! But we shall soon 
 bring our military discipline into that disorder. 
 Still I cannot help thinking that this last hostility 
 to all law and obedience is just the final fruit and 
 logical outcome of that first disobedience, which you 
 cannot have forgotten. But to the rescue, which 
 has always been our deepest aim. 
 
THE DOOM LIFTING. 207 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 Your kindness makes me bold to prefer another 
 even more pressing request: our people have long 
 been stinted in food ; they are all hungry now so 
 am I and soon we shall be actually starving. May 
 I beg you for an immediate supply of provisions 
 for famishing thousands, mainly women and chil 
 dren. The retreating army took along everything 
 eatable and they had but little then left us to 
 perish. 
 
 General. 
 
 We have surmised as much from the statements 
 of deserters. Yonder go the trains with loads of 
 food which our soldiers will share with you. Come 
 now, let us take a bite even here on horseback, you 
 say you are hungry, you look so. Take this slice 
 of bacon with a drink of cold coffee ; you have good 
 teeth, I note, try them on this hard biscuit. No, 
 we shall not let your people starve, now that they 
 have surrendered ; we shall stay the full return of 
 the deed upon you. 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 Your charity is boundless, and I appreciate your 
 forgiveness. All of it will be required. Several 
 hundreds of homeless mothers, and their little ones 
 are huddled together on the vacant space of the 
 Square; they not only are without food but with- 
 
208 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 out cover, many of them have had to leave behind 
 in their hurried flight from the fire their house 
 hold goods; they will need shelter, bedding, even 
 clothing, their plight was pitiable when I saw them 
 yesterday, and their numbers must have largely 
 increased. 
 
 General. 
 
 Truly a day of reckoning; see the dense clouds 
 of smoke rolling heavenward yonder ! But also see 
 those wagons winding up the road, they have been 
 already ordered to your city, they contain tents 
 and blankets with much clothing, but it is blue and 
 your folk will have to wear it now. We seek to 
 save Richmond from itself and the South too ; that 
 is my interpretation of this conflict, which fact is 
 now receiving a pointed illustration. 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 Here we come into the city; the fire seems to be 
 stayed; such is the rapid work of your soldiers. 
 Then the tumult on the streets is largely allayed, 
 the criminals must have scattered or hidden, I see 
 few of them skulking around. They may well be 
 afraid of your guns and your order. 
 
 General. 
 
 Certainly ! I see upraised the happy sign of the 
 great new change which will soon be everywhere: 
 
THE DOOM LIFTING. 209 
 
 over the capitol yonder are floating already the 
 Stars and the Stripes. 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 Indeed! That flag was not there when I came 
 away. But let it stay. 
 
 General. 
 
 I wonder who first put it there. He deserves a 
 reward, for he has done what I call a typical act. 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 Before we separate, I would like to say one more 
 word about a matter as yet unmentioned, which 
 weighs heavy on my mind. Possibly our greatest 
 calamity is yet to come ; the danger is very threat 
 ening, as I think, and the worse for being so in 
 sidious. In every household of consequence is a 
 black slave and often several in whose hands 
 rest the lives and the honor of our dearest ones, 
 our women and children. Who can tell what is 
 lurking in those wooly pates, even when outwardly 
 docile and faithful? In my own family there is 
 the same peril. I do not know what may happen 
 at any moment. Among the better whites this 
 anxiety is universal, torturing us all day and night, 
 but especially our women who are most exposed, 
 
210 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 right on their hearths, to an outbreak of servile 
 passion and revenge. This is the secret ever-gnaw 
 ing Hell, worse than the open one of war, which 
 we have suffered these last four years particularly, 
 though we had some taste of it before. I would 
 pray you to help us ward off this most terrible 
 fate by keeping your black soldiers at a distance. 
 My most fervid petition to you is not to let any 
 colored regiment of yours enter the city the evil 
 consequences cannot be even mentioned. 
 
 General. 
 
 I cannot guarantee your request, though will 
 ing; in my brigade are no negro troops, and it is 
 not in my sphere to prevent their coming from 
 elsewhere. Again I have to remark that your 
 deep-seated terror is the nemesis of slavery lurking 
 and working in the master s soul for his deed. 
 Your speakers have always painted the horrors of 
 a black revolt in lurid colors; Jefferson Davis is 
 reported to have twanged that blood-curdling note 
 in his last speech at Richmond. I clung to the 
 same view at the beginning of the war, but do no 
 longer ; there has been no slave insurrection during 
 the entire struggle, though every sable poll must 
 have known that it meant his freedom. Hence I 
 do not believe that there is any real danger from 
 
THE DOOM LIFTING. 211 
 
 the negroes in your city ; your fears are self -born, 
 though, very triturating. 
 
 Mayor. 
 
 See, yonder comes a regiment, marching in full 
 pomp as if going out to battle. Oh ! despair, they 
 are black soldiers advancing to the heart of the 
 town! Merciful God, save us from this last deso 
 lation! Good-by, I must rush off at once to my 
 family to protect them from outrage. 
 
 General. 
 
 Mortal anxiety Hell itself Yet an honest man 
 and worthy just see the Furies lashing him! 
 
V. 
 
 The Doom Undoomed. 
 
 What was the new dread far subtler 
 
 Bunning through Richmond, 
 
 Quaking the bravest hearts of her folk 
 
 With a tremor more poignant in agony 
 
 Than even the demons of conflagration 
 
 Were able to set vibrating horribly ? 
 
 Look ! what is it now coming ? 
 
 A regiment of gleaming dark faces, in blue dress, 
 
 Erect, of proud bearing and look, 
 
 No shiftless lopping of body, 
 
 Not a hole in their big shoes all shining, 
 
 Not a stain on their azure suits 
 
 Whence glanced the polished brass buttons 
 
 Like the twinkle of blue-set stars : 
 
 So they came on as if at grand parade, 
 
 With new-born consciousness 
 
 (212) 
 
THE DOOM UNDOOMED. 213 
 
 Uplifted now to enfranchisement, 
 
 Slaves unslaving the slave, 
 
 And rescuing even the master 
 
 From his act of enslavement 
 
 Now working out its last consequences. 
 
 But no disorder, no rapine, no savagery, 
 
 Only the steady march of discipline 
 
 Till the Public Square is reached, 
 
 Where they halt and salute the frolicking flag, 
 
 Emblem of the Nation 
 
 For which they have staked life in battle, 
 
 And of which they have made themselves sharers. 
 
 And now they take their places on guard, 
 
 Image of order keeping order 
 
 And saving destroyers from self-destruction ; 
 
 They are helping to stanch the public wound 
 
 Which threatens mortality, 
 
 And to their own exuberant people 
 
 Now tumultously swathed about them 
 
 Exampling the hour s duty. 
 
 But the once proud masters of Richmond 
 
 Shrank pale at the sight, 
 
 Each hurrying home as to his fortress 
 
 Which he felt he must defend with his life 
 
 Against the last indignity, 
 
 And sentinel every approach 
 
 With himself as sole gunman. 
 
214 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 Pallid his lips but resolute, 
 
 "Which whispered: What next? 
 
 As if he were ready to besprinkle 
 
 Fate itself with his own heart s blood 
 
 In the ultimate duel. 
 
 But there was no danger, 
 
 None even fluttered in the distance 
 
 For a threatening moment: 
 
 Still the awful nightmare of fantasy 
 
 Dreaming the peril black 
 
 Crushed day into night of despair, 
 
 Penetrating parlor, kitchen, bedroom, 
 
 And brooding there with chill vampyre-wings 
 
 Which iced the heart with terror. 
 
 Upburst has the long-inherited fear 
 
 Of racial vengeance 
 
 For seven generations of enslavement, 
 
 Which started just here on the James ; 
 
 So let it be requited at last 
 
 Where it first began : 
 
 Such would seem to be retribution s law 
 
 Writ on the soul s deepest tablets 
 
 Of the offender. 
 
 But no requital falls, 
 
 No vengeful savagery 
 
 Except this self-inflicted torture 
 
 Of personal terror ; 
 
THE DOOM UNDOOMED. 215 
 
 But instead, a higher order dawns, 
 Which saves the slave and too the enslaver, 
 In the one epochal deed together 
 Kepresented by those black soldiers, 
 Freemen obeying stern discipline, 
 Upbearing on their swords the new law 
 "Which undooms the doom of Richmond 
 And of the Nation too, 
 Just by their swart-skinned presence 
 Dimly prophetic of some racial future. 
 
 Still to Richmond they seemed the Judgment-day 
 
 Descending with its awful trump 
 
 And lowering over her very soul 
 
 As they paraded proudly through her streets 
 
 In the uniform new of liberty. 
 
 But they meant just the opposite, 
 
 They relieved her of her ancient curse 
 
 Along with her entire people, 
 
 Proclaiming the old black Fate of the Nation 
 
 So long overhung in menace 
 
 To be at last unfated. 
 
 Nor is the hero of the new order 
 To fail at the axial moment 
 "Which concentrated in Richmond 
 As the symbol of the Southland. 
 Rumor pierces the multitude 
 
216 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART SECOND. 
 
 At first in an uncertain whisper, 
 
 Then with an outletting shout universal 
 
 Which blends the many-voiced mass to oneness : 
 
 " Lincoln has come! 
 
 He too must take Richmond ! 
 
 Look at his tall stride yonder 
 
 Mounting the steps of the Capitol!" 
 
art 
 
 Lincoln s Richmond. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 l Heave to, my lads, another valiant stroke ! 
 
 So shrills his voice the President uprisen, 
 
 And tokens with his hand the anchorage 
 
 Unto the sturdy band of mariners 
 
 Beating one sullen harmony of oars 
 
 Until that barge of State grinds on the shore, 
 
 And is roped fast where Richmond has her wharf, 
 
 On which the crew leap out to guard their guest, 
 
 The bearer of supreme authority, 
 
 Who rallies wording them their final task: 
 
 Once more you must push out and test the deed, 
 
 Oaring me through the surging throng of folk, 
 
 More desperate than little rippling James, 
 
 With more torpedoes hidden in its bosom. 
 
 (217) 
 
218 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Advance ! our goal is yonder Capitol, 
 
 Now beckoning me from high Heaven s dome, 
 
 Which I must win before I dare turn back 
 
 Home to the White House, or home to the grave. " 
 
 Thus Lincoln tapped his boldest hidden thought 
 
 And flung it outwards on the threatening air, 
 
 Which dropped its sooty choking mantle o er him 
 
 As if to strangle his Olympian words 
 
 Proclaiming present turn of destiny. 
 
 Then with a calmer look of inward eye 
 
 He glimpsed his own far resolution 
 
 Outlooking o er the edge of destiny: 
 
 "I somehow seem to see the soul of things 
 
 Rise hither in a kind of second sight 
 
 Shaping to me an inner spectacle. 
 
 The thousandfold events shrink to one shape 
 
 Which still can show the substance of them all 
 
 As it fleets by upon my vision new. 
 
 But vanish, specters born of this grand moment ! 
 
 I have not yet come to the lofty close, 
 
 Which soon may pinnacle my life with death. " 
 
 So saying Lincoln gave the speedy step 
 And started through the thronging multitude 
 Centered mid fourteen men as body-guard, 
 In downright challenge fronting Destiny 
 Herself in dread defiant tournament. 
 Wrapped in the lowering folds of sulky smoke 
 
PROLOGUE. 219 
 
 Which greeted eye and breath uncannily, 
 He made his way through Pandemonium 
 Of many mingled elements unchained, 
 Seeking to undo the city s self -done doom, 
 And to undemonize the dark grim mass 
 Now loosed to its own license as its law. 
 Two prisons he could glimpse in outline dim 
 Shaping themselves upon the glowering air 
 Like the dire monsters of primeval time, 
 But empty now of all their life and purpose, 
 Mere hollow shells of by-gone days of Earth. 
 The one, which bore the name of Libby prison, 
 Was the dark den for captured soldiery, 
 Misfortune s brave defenders of the Union ; 
 The other was the dreary pen for slaves 
 Holding the human crop put up for sale ; 
 Both structures seemed but ghostly skeletons 
 Left over from an era past forever. 
 
 Still the destruction had begun to wane 
 Staying its rage throughout the doomful city; 
 The uniforms in blue had stacked their guns 
 To fight this newest foe of their old foes 
 Whom they must now protect against self-death. 
 Thus Lincoln with his band of small defence 
 Marched up the street through strangers orderless, 
 Tilting upon the very edge of fate, 
 To make the goal, the fallen Capitol. 
 
220 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Meanwhile lie had observed another group 
 
 Made up of dark-drawn faces resolute, 
 
 Stalwart of form and ready for a spring; 
 
 Its members marched along outside his band 
 
 As if a second guard to his own body-guard. 
 
 At last its leader caught the eye of Lincoln 
 
 And begged to say to him a private word, 
 
 Bowing deep reverence at the request, 
 
 To which the President gave his assent: 
 
 "I saw you once before far in the West, 
 
 When you were captain of a troop of men 
 
 Marching up the Mississippi s shore 
 
 To take a hand in Black Hawk s Indian war. 
 
 Do you remember that a runaway, 
 
 A woman slave, fleeing from Missouri 
 
 Across the river with her mulatto child, 
 
 Appeared one day within your wondering camp, 
 
 To gain her freedom in your own free State, 
 
 The boon which then she felt was yours to grant ? 
 
 That was my mother and I was her boy 
 
 The little curly-headed picaninny, 
 
 Whom you then rescued, sending us away 
 
 By stealth of night, in charge of a good Quaker. 
 
 Lincoln gazed at the man and then broke out : 
 "What! is it true? so many years ago! 
 Can you have been that swaddled swarthy babe 
 Whom I would not send back to servitude, 
 
PROLOGUE. 221 
 
 Though bidden by my country s highest hest ? 
 that deep discord which your case struck up 
 Within my brain, I never shall forget, 
 Between my conscience and my Nation s law; 
 But now that law is swept away forever 
 Bidding me dehumanize myself, 
 As even then I felt it must be with the years, 
 For this land is no more half -slave half- free, 
 Tis all the one and not the other too. 
 But how prophetic seem those old events 
 Forecasting quite what we have done to-day ! 
 Somehow that Black Hawk War presaged me here, 
 Just here at Richmond, the South s Capital, 
 That I unchain not only you the one, 
 But your whole race, one has become the all. 
 
 The strong-knit face looked up and firmly spoke : 
 "Such is the reason why I have dared hither; 
 T would requite your deed of rescue now 
 Though thirty years ago and more it happed 
 So I have brought my band of watchful scouts, 
 All of my color sworn to secret duty, 
 Spying the movements of the enemy; 
 Ward Lamon knows me, to whom I oft report, 
 Here is his signature and cypher too. 
 " Tis so, I recognize the hand," said Lincoln, 
 "And I have noticed too the firm-set brows 
 Of your bronze-featured men of massive tread 
 
222 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Circling about my little group of guards 
 
 New recompense born of an old good deed. 
 
 " Another word permit me still to speak/ 
 
 His dark-skinned benefactor to him whispered : 
 
 "Do you recall a man of sombre look, 
 
 A semi- African and fugitive 
 
 From being owned a slave on Southern soil, 
 
 Who had turned Indian in his hate of whites, 
 
 But changed when once he saw your character 
 
 Written upon your actions merciful 
 
 As he disguised spied out your camp and you ? 
 
 They called him Swartface from his nighted look. 
 
 Thus has he often told me of his life ; 
 
 I am his son, but he has been discharged 
 
 By death from his black regiment, the first. 
 
 Here Lincoln could no longer list the tale, 
 Another task begins and so he parts 
 With words full of his heartfelt recognitions 
 "My gratitude is due to you and yours, 
 You have helped rescue your old rescuer. 
 See here ! a later act looms up before me : 
 This is the Capitol which I must enter, 
 Bearing the Nation s unity restored." 
 So Lincoln started slowly up the steps 
 Which led him to the seat but lately held 
 By hostile sovereignty now fled from view 
 And Southward vanishing to its last zero, 
 
PROLOGUE. 223 
 
 Which meant the long-fought discord s dying close. 
 But listen to the music on the heights, 
 Keeping Heaven s time to every tread he takes 
 As he ascends the topmost Capitol ! 
 He moves attuned to hear that air-sung strain 
 For he can feel some subtle change within 
 Which gives him power to see the soul of things, 
 To list the era s ideal harmonies, 
 To lift each sense to supersensible 
 Till he commune with the prime Essences. 
 Hear how the breeze turns to a hymning voice 
 As it whirls round him on the Capitol, 
 Choiring the moment s cosmic melodies! 
 
224 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Song From Above. 
 
 Hark, the echo ! Heaven is now one ! 
 
 We Powers thrill the theme; 
 
 For we heave hearts of tunefulness 
 
 And sway in concord s dream 
 
 When Earth s events have rounded out 
 
 To harmony supreme. 
 
 The secret music of the Spheres 
 
 Is voicing loud its lay 
 
 As ne er before heard in the past 
 
 It throbs high strains to-day; 
 
 The organ of the Universe 
 
 Is starting now to play. 
 
 And God Himself is halved no more 
 To North and South of yore ; 
 Again He is one in the Nation 
 One love, one song, one prayer 
 Is breathing out of all creation 
 Round Lincoln everywhere. 
 
I. 
 
 Lincoln s New Office. 
 
 Let the reader use his mind s eye again 
 
 And scan the lofty President 
 
 Now of the whole United States 
 
 As he sits down in the Capitol s chair 
 
 Just vacated by the fleeing Davis, 
 
 The Union s Counter President. 
 
 Lincoln s first glance from his sunny new height 
 
 Bespoke compassion for his foe ; 
 
 Yet that much furrowed face of his 
 
 Seemed to lose its sad fissures, 
 
 Its corrugations suddenly smoothed, 
 
 And his features flowed, fused and united 
 
 As never before 
 
 Into harmony s mirror. 
 
 He dismissed his guard of sailors 
 
 With word and favor of recognition 
 
 (225) 
 
226 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Due to their perilous service now ended, 
 For on all sides he saw his soldiers 
 Possessed of the city s sway, 
 In rule of the ruleless multitude, 
 Quenching the fire to its last blazes 
 And relieving the destitute people 
 Even if hostile. 
 
 Alone he sat for awhile looking outward, 
 
 Then he turned to himself in converse: 
 
 "I cannot dismiss from the sight of my soul 
 
 That babbling curl-crowned bright picaninny 
 
 Whom I saw hanging from his mother s breast, 
 
 As she begged me to rescue herself 
 
 "With her child from pursuers 
 
 On her track with blood-hounds, 
 
 And send her to liberty, 
 
 When I, a young callow Captain, 
 
 Was making my march on the Indian. 
 
 That action I seem re-enacting 
 
 Now in its wholeness, 
 
 That primal deed of enfranchisement 
 
 Was done against many a protest then, 
 
 But the germ I feel it to-day 
 
 Of my proclamation of freedom 
 
 Thirty years later decreed; 
 
 So I muse as I sit here in Eichmond 
 
 Looking backward and forward 
 
LINCOLN S NEW OFFICE. 227 
 
 Out of the citadel fallen, 
 
 Watching myself in the glass of my youth 
 
 To foretoken what I am now. 
 
 Lincoln rose from his seat 
 
 And strode slowly around that central point 
 
 As pivoting his new order, 
 
 While he observed a multitude black 
 
 Peering timidly at him out of the distance, 
 
 With eyes in full stare of wonder 
 
 And oft with half -prayerful look, 
 
 As if they saw an apparition 
 
 Lit down from Heaven 
 
 There in the Capitol. 
 
 But Lincoln had soon resumed his seat 
 
 And kept up his self s reminiscence: 
 
 "How another recurrence wells up 
 
 And possesses my entire memory, 
 
 Which took place but a few days later 
 
 In the same Western campaign 
 
 Outwardly aiming at Black Hawk, 
 
 Inwardly budding my future : 
 
 Jefferson Davis, then a young Lieutenant, 
 
 Swore me, as Captain of my company, 
 
 Into the Nation s service; 
 
 After his words I lisped my first oath 
 
 To maintain the Constitution 
 
 As the Law supreme of the Union. 
 
228 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 And I brought down my fist with a thump 
 
 On a table to stress my vow, 
 
 Even clapping my hand on my sword, 
 
 Whereat he seemed to start back in surprise, 
 
 And gave me a haughty look 
 
 Whose reproof I still can remember 
 
 Tinged with contempt aristocratic. 
 
 Somehow the thought will not leave me 
 
 That our spirits clinched then, 
 
 And had their first germinal wrestle 
 
 Far out on the frontier ; 
 
 For even then was yeasting the strife 
 
 Which is ending to-day 
 
 With me in this seat supreme 
 
 Of Kichmond s Capitol." 
 
 Here Lincoln stopped with a pensive shade 
 
 Overcasting his features a moment, 
 
 As if he feared his own victory 
 
 And shrank from peril of exultation; 
 
 Then he went on reflective : 
 
 "Fain would I construe my rival aright, 
 
 Impartially weighing him; 
 
 He is as honest in conviction, 
 
 I have to believe, as I am, 
 
 And as devoted to his cause; 
 
 But the Fatal Line lay in him from birth 
 
 Ineradicable as his selfhood, 
 
LINCOLN S NEW OFFICE. 229 
 
 Ingrown into his being; 
 
 His soul s last norm was separation, 
 
 And his heart s love made for secession, 
 
 Not for slavery, which he could give up 
 
 On behalf of his higher disunion. 
 
 Whence did he inherit that trait, 
 
 Cleavage innate of his spirit? 
 
 I diagnose in him the child of Europe 
 
 And of its divided polity 
 
 Made up of many separate States; 
 
 He never was born a right American 
 
 With the deeper instinct of Union 
 
 Overcoming, transcending, re-constructing 
 
 The self -rasping old European States, 
 
 Disjoined and suspicious each of the other, 
 
 Into which he would throw us all back, 
 
 Would revert to the past, not advance to the future. 
 
 Thus I character my brave rival, 
 
 And also myself at our last intuition ; 
 
 But he has lost, despite his high courage, 
 
 Now we shall not turn back, but go forward 
 
 To our own goal of History. 
 
 May he escape ! I hope not to catch him, 
 
 I would not shed his blood if captured 
 
 When his cause is dead." 
 
 Thus Lincoln interprets the man 
 With whom he will be interwoven 
 
230 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Forever inseparate 
 In one great cycle of time historic, 
 Each belonging to each in opposition, 
 Yet both forming one whole of the Nation s act 
 At the turn of an epoch. 
 Two persons they whirl on reverse sides 
 Of the one vast revolution 
 
 Which is now completing its round at Richmond- 
 Double suns, the one quite extinct now, 
 The other waxing ever in brilliance. 
 So Lincoln sat reflecting in sorrow 
 Over his fallen antagonist, 
 Whose conscience he honored 
 Though not his cause, 
 Whereat he sighed from his deeps : 
 
 1 1 the pain of it though the triumph be mine ! 
 
 A crushed personality sinking down 
 
 From its lofty pedestal! 
 
 And a broken folk-soul along with its crash ! 
 
 The backstroke of smiting misfortune 
 
 I feel concentring on me just here, 
 
 Even if it had to be, 
 
 And I, just I, had to bring it about! 
 
 Oh the pathos of human failure 
 
 Even if merited ! 
 
 That pathos overwhelms me the conqueror, 
 
 The suffering of my foes, though deserved, 
 
LINCOLN S NEW OFFICE. 231 
 
 Is mine too who inflicted it, 
 
 And I must feel the penalty 
 
 Which I had to impose; 
 
 Here I must be not only the victor 
 
 But the vanquished as well; 
 
 Mine is the psean of triumph indeed, 
 
 Yet also the dirge of the overthrow, 
 
 Which I, the poor mortal, must make mine own, 
 
 To be like unto God 
 
 Who is both the defeater and the defeated, 
 
 Embracing his own opposite 
 
 In heart and in head." 
 
 Thus rose up in Lincoln s breast 
 
 The huge resurgence of pity 
 
 Which encompassed all, his own and his other, 
 
 The Yes and the No of him 
 
 In Godlike compassion, 
 
 As if he partook of the Universe whole 
 
 At the fount of primal creation. 
 
 A new shift of existence 
 
 He felt transforming him inward 
 
 The moment he mounted the top 
 
 And took his seat at the Capitol. 
 
 He, hitherto the sturdy warring half, 
 
 Must now become the whole in himself 
 
 Infolding his other as his own, 
 
 Regenerating the small Self of him 
 
232 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 To liken the Self of the All. 
 He sank to a moment s swoon of surprise 
 Over the metamorphosis daring 
 Which was shifting his soul-world entire 
 To complete his own very consciousness, 
 Rising amid such upburst of thought 
 Lincoln was ware of the Presence 
 Familiar, one with himself within, 
 Yet also one with the world without, 
 And he heard the oracle even if voiceless : 
 
 "This is the climax of your career 
 
 That in yourself you can be both sides, 
 
 And bring the contending halves to oneness 
 
 First in your own heart, 
 
 From which will flow forth through all time 
 
 The new harmony of the Nation ; 
 
 For it must be what your are, 
 
 And become the grand reality 
 
 Of your own Self s unity, 
 
 Which has now reached its supreme fulfillment 
 
 Here on the height of this Capitol 
 
 Fallen, but again to rise up better. 
 
 Lincoln, how rapid the whirl of the Now ! 
 
 Hear it ! the wheel of old slow Time 
 
 Has suddenly got to whizzing 
 
 And flings off world-moving events 
 
 With the sweep of the hours. 
 
LINCOLN S NEW OFFICE. 233 
 
 Every revolution of the sun 
 
 Now seems the turn of a century, 
 
 Orbed with mightiest actions 
 
 In swift succession. 
 
 You live a thousand lives 
 
 In these few days of your visit 
 
 Days dropping the fruitage of asons 
 
 Along your path up to Richmond, 
 
 For each movement hither of yours 
 
 Will show in the magic glass of the Future 
 
 A stride of the whole World s History." 
 
 Lincoln shrank at the forecast 
 
 Even if it was his own, 
 
 For his mortal Little Self 
 
 Was submerged for the moment 
 
 In the overflow vast of his Great Self 
 
 Surging down through his soul, 
 
 Vehicle bearing the Presence universal. 
 
 Still he throbbed with the echo 
 
 Of his own retrospect 
 
 As the Presence went on: 
 
 1 Think what has befallen you 
 In these fleet days panoramic: 
 You have gone over the Fatal Line, 
 So has this army of yours gone over, 
 Lifting its mystery veiled of years ; 
 
234 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 And you have won its love at its passage, 
 
 As it surmounts all its obstacles 
 
 Both inner and outer, 
 
 Now aligning for its victorious march 
 
 Forward to Appomatox, the finale. 
 
 Here you have reached the topmost seat 
 
 Of your whole career 
 
 On the perch of this Capitol 
 
 Which you are to dip in your heart 
 
 And rebuild its drear desolation 
 
 Into young Hope s temple, 
 
 Quenching its enmity past. 
 
 That is your sovereign deed creative, 
 
 Healing the wounds of the Nation, 
 
 Rehearing its youth for the fresh career 
 
 Which the ages await. 
 
 What next ? ask your puzzled lips : 
 
 You too are to become a Presence 
 
 Eternal, ever visible 
 
 To your folk, their upper President 
 
 Still swaying them by your example, 
 
 As Restorer, Liberator, Mediator, 
 
 As the Builder of loftier Harmonies 
 
 Than heard ever before on this globe 
 
 Hark, hither they float, those Harmonies, 
 
 To salute you in this Capitol, 
 
 On this summit of triumph 
 
 Ideal forms, entities primal, 
 
LINCOLN S NEW OFFICE. 235 
 
 Voicing their own revelation 
 
 In airy hymnal; 
 
 But with their appearance I vanish, 
 
 For they share not my shape 
 
 But arise formed of themselves; 
 
 Farewell, Lincoln. " 
 
 The friendly Presence was gone, 
 Yet left its last message resounding 
 Through the President s whole being, 
 That he fell to a revery tuned 
 With concordances thrilling him through, 
 Which pass before him a masque 
 Of pure Intelligences in person, 
 Turning the air into cadences rounded, 
 Syllabling lipless their phantasmagory. 
 
II. 
 
 The Masque of Harmonies. 
 
 Conscience. 
 
 I am Conscience, the soul s Confessor; 
 And now I must, in the new order, 
 Myself come to the confessional. 
 The rent of the time I have taken, 
 And disunion too has been mine, 
 For I have sanctioned both sides 
 "With the seal of the holiest duty 
 As if each could be good and evil. 
 Such confession I make of myself, 
 I have been double in this war, 
 Participant of its deep separation, 
 Even of its mutual rancor, 
 Becoming a furious partisan 
 All in myself against myself 
 Evincing the Nation s division. 
 (236) 
 
THE MASQUE OF HARMONIES. 237 
 
 Two consciences have stood arrayed 
 
 In .battle-line against each other, 
 
 Each sincere and true to itself, 
 
 For what it deemed the right. 
 
 Lincoln had conscience, 
 
 Davis had conscience, 
 
 Grant and Lee both possessed me, 
 
 Northern and Southern each side claimed me, 
 
 Me, this Conscience, as its own particular ; 
 
 So I divided and fought myself, 
 
 And I tell you, that was the real battle. 
 
 Behind the deadly onset of men enranked, 
 
 Behind the flash of musketry 
 
 And the roar of artillery, 
 
 Two Titanic convictions in full panoply 
 
 Charged each other and kept up the onslaught : 
 
 Till now and what now ? 
 
 They have come to know each other 
 
 Through the hardest discipline, 
 
 Each grants to the other equal worth 
 
 Of ultimate character. 
 
 Thus they are twinned by a common principle 
 
 In their last Holy of Holies, 
 
 Forming the deepest pledge for the Union 
 
 Now to be re-established on groundwork new, 
 
 The primal bed-rock of the heart. 
 
 Both can unite in mutual esteem, 
 
238 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Yea, can reverence each, other s valor 
 
 In service of Conscience, 
 
 Which at last cements by affection. 
 
 Then I must confess to another lesson 
 
 Most surprising of all: 
 
 I, Conscience, once thought me sovereign 
 
 Over the individual, 
 
 Lawgiver sole of his tribunal. 
 
 Indeed I have sometimes proclaimed myself 
 
 To be God Himself, the last arbiter 
 
 Judging, condemning, approving 
 
 The deeds of the man here below 
 
 By my absolute authority. 
 
 But through this strife of two causes hallowed, 
 
 I, Conscience, discern a Power above me 
 
 Throned over my doubleness, 
 
 A oneness beyond my twoness 
 
 What can it be ? 
 
 A vast new experience : 
 
 A Presence takes me up into itself 
 
 And heals my battling dualism 
 
 God is one, and in Him is Union, 
 
 I, Conscience, am many, bringing difference. 
 
 That Presence, Lincoln, possesses thee, 
 
 As thou resumest both Consciences 
 
 Into thy Self s integration, 
 
THE MASQUE OF HARMONIES. 239 
 
 Making whole again the soul of thy people 
 To be at one with the soul of the All. 
 
 Still another confession, my Lincoln : 
 
 I fell out with myself not alone, 
 
 But with the uppermost Law enacted, 
 
 Proclaiming it Hell s 
 
 And deeming myself the highest of Laws 
 
 Outreaching that of the State 
 
 Whose rule against mine I did challenge. 
 
 Thus I, Conscience, turned unlawful, 
 
 A destroyer of institutions 
 
 Defiant of human association, 
 
 Facing myself toward chaos 
 
 "With all the madness of suicide. 
 
 Me, Conscience, you have uplifted 
 
 From mine own fatal chasm, 
 
 And reconciled with Law the Orderer, 
 
 Aye with myself, Lincoln. 
 
 You knew me and loved me, how deeply ! 
 
 But you had to overmaster in might 
 
 My maddened inner revolt 
 
 Against the right of the Law. 
 
 Hist ! hither it hovers, the Law itself 
 In its reposeful semblance of form, 
 With all its new-born majesty 
 Crowned by the voice of the Nation 
 
240 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Though I hold still within me 
 
 My sanctuary of Self, 
 
 And whisper each soul s guidance. 
 
 I become one with legality here, 
 
 Joined in the marriage of spirit 
 
 After our long-wrathed mutual scission ; 
 
 I, Conscience, now consecrate Law 
 
 As my own highest worth, 
 
 And take its form and its voice 
 
 Hearken ! it too will confess. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 I salute thy confession, Conscience, 
 
 For it is mine too ; 
 
 I have always acknowledged thee 
 
 Though I felt thy inner disruption ; 
 
 Disunion had become conscientious 
 
 Both in the North and the South 
 
 With its inner division and hate. 
 
 But here thou hast proclaimed thee healed 
 
 In the Nation and in the man. 
 
 Methinks I now see the soul-born Vampyre, 
 
 Melancholy, my old bat of the Styx, 
 
 To lift its night- wings for flight. 
 
 But think! thou confessest thee reconciled too 
 
 "With authority legal; 
 
 Just that was for years my burning petition 
 
 To the Almighty s Love. 
 
THE MASQUE OF HARMONIES. 241 
 
 But like a fair lawyer 
 I fain would hear too the other side ; 
 Good ! here stands the Law in person 
 With his plea at my bar. 
 
 Law. 
 
 I, the Law of the Land, am made whole, 
 Cured of my first disorder, 
 For at my birth the Fatal Line 
 Dividing this country in twain 
 Divided me in its Constitution. 
 I too, the Law, was half-slave, half-free, 
 And the ever-widening cleft 
 With its lowering threat of dissolution 
 Yawned in my written statutes, 
 Eifted every Commonwealth, 
 And every individual soul, 
 Till at last came the furious clash, 
 With the shock of contending hosts. 
 Two Laws I grew up in fell conflict, 
 Though the same of name from the start, 
 Grinding in desperate inner attrition 
 Till the one became two Constitutions 
 Arrayed against each other, 
 Battling across the Fatal Line 
 Which found its deepest chasm in me, this Me. 
 So I, the Law, was split by secession, 
 To which I gave my sanction ; 
 
242 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 I was myself disunion 
 
 And went to war at the head of both armies, 
 
 Upholding each with my legal sanction. 
 
 But that time of my discord is over, 
 
 The Fatal Line is transcended, 
 
 The one President has now taken his seat, 
 
 Now the one only, 
 
 Just here in Richmond the fallen, 
 
 The Capital of my separation, 
 
 But no longer separated; 
 
 One has become the two Constitutions 
 
 And I am whole again, 
 
 I, the single organic Law 
 
 Informing the Nation, 
 
 My dark counterpart having evanished 
 
 With its Southern enactment. 
 
 And yet another outcry of hallelujah 
 
 I with all my gravity feel like shouting: 
 
 The news has just come : 
 
 Congress has cut out of my organism, 
 
 By its bold legislative surgery 
 
 The poisonous Fate of my life hitherto, 
 
 Obliterating the line forever 
 
 Once drawn there by slavery. 
 
 So I, the Law, am internally one 
 
 With the one Nation ; 
 
 I am now in myself the Union 
 
THE MASQUE OF HARMONIES. 243 
 
 Transformed from Disunion, 
 
 And henceforth I, the mother of States, 
 
 Shall bear them all free, 
 
 And never a Slave-State again. 
 
 But what is that soulful harmony falling 
 
 As out of spheres overearthly, 
 
 Yet singing within me its chorus ? 
 
 I the Law, am at peace with Conscience 
 
 Which has shown me so often repugnance 
 
 And has cursed me, defied me, 
 
 And even has sought to destroy me 
 
 In my own citadel. 
 
 That had grown my greatest peril, 
 
 The folk-soul was turning illegal 
 
 Hating my ordinance primal, 
 
 Denying me as its own, 
 
 Planning lawlessness over me 
 
 Me, the uppermost Law. 
 
 But now the reconciliation has come; 
 
 Law, the universal, 
 
 Conscience, the individual, 
 
 We, the strifeful couple of bitter words, 
 
 Not only have made up our fiery quarrel, 
 
 But are married and keep house together 
 
 All over the land, 
 
 To a harmony happy composed 
 
 And hearted in mutual devotion. 
 
244 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Upon this atonement of spirits estranged, 
 
 Both of them his as well as the Nation s, 
 
 Lincoln failed not to breath his benediction: 
 
 "Let me bless your happy espousals, 
 
 For I of myself share this new concord, 
 
 Long have I known you both, and your conflicts, 
 
 In my bosom you two were disputing 
 
 Many seasons ago and never have stopped 
 
 Till now at .this Capitol s truce. 
 
 Let me also add my confession: 
 
 The battle of Conscience and Law 
 
 "Was mine from the dawn of my reason, 
 
 Jarring my soul with that of the People, 
 
 Whose every shock I felt as mine own. 
 
 But hist ! a new appearance rises 
 
 Strangely endowed with your ideal semblance ; 
 
 Is it a mock simulacrum deceptive, 
 
 Or thought s reality figured? 
 
 It seems of your very body air-molded, 
 
 Aye, the child of your harmony 
 
 So soon begotten, born, and grown; 
 
 Look! it moves the air to a voice 
 
 Telling perchance yet another confession. 
 
 Liberty. 
 
 I, the Spirit of Liberty, can now rise up 
 To my birthright whole for the first time, 
 
THE MASQUE OF HARMONIES. 245 
 
 And take my full shape here healed ; 
 
 For I also was cleft in the middle, 
 
 And showed me two hostile Liberties 
 
 Fighting each other e en to the death 
 
 On a hundred fields of carnage. 
 
 Each side with fervor invoked my name 
 
 Calling me their Goddess supreme, 
 
 And offering too themselves as my sacrifice 
 
 On the bloody altar of war 
 
 With equal devotion. 
 
 But my jubilee has arrived, 
 
 My twofoldness is healed, 
 
 I am become one entire Liberty, 
 
 No longer half paralytic 
 
 With the stroke of servitude. 
 
 For mine too was the Fatal Line 
 
 Which has been unmade 
 
 To make the Nation rightly united, 
 
 So that now it can shout in truth : 
 
 Liberty and Union 
 
 Interwrought as soul and body : 
 
 No Law without Conscience, 
 
 No Conscience without Law 
 
 Hereafter will read the supernal decree 
 
 To be writ by the Spirit of History. 
 
 Thus is the ideal couple loyally wedded 
 
 In the heart and in the institution, 
 
246 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 And from such parents I can be rightly born, 
 
 Dowered to do my task in the world 
 
 I, Liberty, goal universal 
 
 Of all Persons, Polities, Peoples. 
 
 Now the President looking from Richmond 
 
 Beholds me, Liberty, liberated, 
 
 As he enfranchises me outer and inner, 
 
 And me remakes to be whole and real 
 
 For a new career on the earth, 
 
 Re-building a race with my image. 
 
 I wish that old John Brown might be here, 
 
 The toughest Puritan Conscience, 
 
 Most refractory to every Law 
 
 Except his own for himself, 
 
 And so in my name undoing me 
 
 I believe that Lincoln s new deed 
 
 Would mediate even him, 
 
 Though the part extreme of his party, 
 
 And him reconcile with his other, the Law, 
 
 Which was his very anti-Christ, 
 
 And which in defense of itself 
 
 Aye of me too, Liberty, 
 
 Had in sorrow to decree him to death 
 
 Weeping to strangle so much of Conscience. 
 
 Even the blacks whom he tried to set free 
 
 Cannot take him as examplar final; 
 
 Whom will they elect ? Their right Liberator 
 
THE MASQUE OF HARMONIES. 247 
 
 But hark ! what hither rolls marching and chanting 
 
 In multitudinous psalm-song? 
 
 Freedmen leaping, uplooking, vociferous, 
 
 Who are calling to me, oh Liberty ! 
 
 Seeming to see me here on this Capitol 
 
 As I stand alongside Lincoln, 
 
 Shadowing outward his substance 
 
 To their faith- wrought fantasy. 
 
 They shout their wild hosannas of freedom 
 
 Mid rapturous fragments of Scripture, 
 
 Bearing as center an ancient book 
 
 With opened clasps and shredded binding, 
 
 A much-used volume stained and tarnished, 
 
 But an offering sacred; 
 
 Enough ! now let me vanish as spectre, 
 
 And watch me becoming reality, 
 
 Freedom s reality, grander than ever. 
 
 Transition. 
 
 Lincoln gazed mentally delving 
 Into the drama spectacular 
 With its round of three characters 
 Circling him as their center. 
 The frank eidolon of Liberty 
 Here ceased its speech to the President, 
 And sought to fleet out of his sight 
 But it could not. 
 Those great eyes of African ecstasy 
 
248 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Kept seeing it stand beside Lincoln 
 And re-making it made already, 
 An apparition godlike descending 
 On earth to their high jubilee, 
 Long glimpsed as their sacred ideal, 
 And hoped for in shadowy dream, . 
 But now come true as truth itself, 
 Aye divine to them as their Lord. 
 
 Lincoln had also his access of wonder 
 At the three air-rounded forms, 
 Rising in order and telling unbidden 
 Their own deepest mystery 
 Conscience, Law, Liberty, 
 Each like a soul in confession 
 Revealing its own ultimate process, 
 Yet each the essence of millions of souls 
 The time s participants. 
 Brooding far down in his bottomless sea 
 Where is the home of existences primal, 
 Lincoln exclaimed to himself : 
 
 "What phantasms ghostly, unsubstantial, 
 
 And yet most real of earth s realities, 
 
 The Pure Energies behind this whole war ! 
 
 Such I seem to witness just here 
 
 Addressing me on this Capitol 
 
 Where they by some spell come down as mine own, 
 
THE MASQUE OF HARMONIES. 249 
 
 Though the whole Nation s as well. 
 
 What is this change going on within me 
 
 As if I dwelt and conversed with the Essences 
 
 Incorporeal, eternal, immortal! 
 
 It rests upon me like a future state 
 
 Casting foreshadows into my life 
 
 As of destiny coming. 
 
 Yet another marvel I query: 
 
 Each of these forms had a double at first, 
 
 The strange encounter of two selves opposed 
 
 Which it had to make one. 
 
 That also I felt to be mine : 
 
 It called up the wraith of my counterpart 
 
 Stealthily striding before me awake 
 
 At my task in the White-House. 
 
 But here three Personalities double 
 
 Eise up self-opposed yet one, 
 
 Forming a triple turn of appearances outer 
 
 Yet all interlinked internally 
 
 Into one cycle of pageantry. 
 
 But hark ! the uproar crashes about me, 
 
 The trinity masqued of my spooks fleets away, 
 
 The reality now breaks in to undream me 
 
 With the noise of an epoch burst forth. 
 
 What an earthquake of souls! 
 
 Primal eruption of infantile manhood, 
 
250 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 It whirls its lava-stream hither! 
 Great G-od ! What means it now and endless ! 
 From above? From below? Or both? 
 Indeed I shall meet it." 
 
III. 
 
 The African Jubilee. 
 
 Hurrah ! they come, the dark-skinned folk, 
 
 Kumbling in stormy multitude 
 
 Through the streets overswollen with cheers 
 
 Toward Abraham Lincoln s stand 
 
 On the Capitol fallen. 
 
 Chanting the paean of freedom 
 
 In a fitful ecstatic rhythm, 
 
 They tune the earth to their heavy tread 
 
 Along the centering highways. 
 
 All lift up the common shout 
 
 Of hallelujah to the Lord, 
 
 Hurled with an elemental energy 
 
 From the pent-up human soul 
 
 Now first loosed of its ancient bondage, 
 
 Its ancestral fetters broken. 
 
 The black mass marches onward 
 
 (251) 
 
252 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Tumultuous, weeping, Grod-invoking, 
 
 With, many a hit at the Devil 
 
 In sudden convulsions of song 
 
 As if obsessed with Heaven s own rapture, 
 
 Chanting the New Jerusalem s glory 
 
 In frantic doxology. 
 
 Lincoln they longed to see and to hear 
 
 As some appearance divine, 
 
 Come down from throne celestial 
 
 For their earthly deliverance. 
 
 In the midst of a choiring group 
 Which headed the turmoil tempestuous, 
 Singing shreds of a psalm of David 
 Strode their preacher bare-headed, 
 With visage all shining adoration, 
 As he presented a Bible to Lincoln 
 Who rose to receive his visitors, 
 And gave ear to their dialect rude, 
 Which pulsed the full heart of the speaker, 
 While he told the story ever repeated 
 How the Israelites under Moses, 
 Their leader miracle-working, 
 Escaped from the bondage of Egypt 
 Through the Red Sea and the Desert 
 To the promised land of their people 
 Flowing with milk and honey and freedom. 
 So spake the resounding orator 
 
THE AFRICAN JUBILEE. 253 
 
 With many responsive refrains, 
 From the throng of heads all ringleted 
 And bubbling over with strong amens 
 Reverberating up to the welkin. 
 
 f 
 
 Lincoln took quietly into his hand 
 The sacred Book of Books, 
 And modulated his words to a music 
 Heart- jetted in tender sunshine: 
 "The best gift of God unto man! 
 The sacred folk-book of Nations, 
 It has made a road for all peoples, 
 Not alone for the chosen one, 
 To rise out of their thralldom s limit 
 And to win their liberty s dower. 
 I have learned life from its pages, 
 Every day I turn its leaves over 
 And try to read a chapter or verse 
 To pattern my doing after Jehovah. 
 For I too have needed emancipation 
 From my former condition, 
 I toiled in mine own bonds of Egypt 
 Which fettered me fast; 
 Mine own Red Sea also I knew 
 Drawing a line of fate against me 
 Which I had to pass over 
 For myself as well as for you. 
 I could give you my inner history 
 
254 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Of long wrestlings for light supernal, 
 
 Often I felt me deserted of Heaven 
 
 In the midst of awful calamities ; 
 
 But I would come back to this book, 
 
 And in it search to discover God s ways 
 
 Of releasing His people 
 
 Even by means of chastisement bloody, 
 
 Till the right eternal be done 
 
 As taught in this school-book of Providence, 
 
 Whose lesson the Nation also must learn. 
 
 Such was my discipline personal 
 
 Which trained me in sympathy s gospel 
 
 Till I grew strong with the deity; 
 
 Then I felt one with your lot 
 
 Daring to free the whole land and you and myself. 
 
 But now let us be thankful together 
 
 That our wanderings long in the wilderness 
 
 Have landed us all ungyved 
 
 Just at this Capitol fallen, 
 
 But fallen toward the new Paradise. 
 
 The speaker let vanish his voice 
 
 Into the chorus of singing thousands, 
 
 Who intoned one of their folk-hymns 
 
 Made up of words from the Hebrew Psalmist, 
 
 Yet overwrought to the fibre 
 
 Which bore the stamp of the race 
 
 Chanting the wild runic melody 
 
THE AFRICAN JUBILEE. 255 
 
 Charactered warmly of Africa. 
 
 Oceanic rose the swell of the song, 
 
 As if heaving all those bosoms now blessed 
 
 To a common upburst of ecstasy 
 
 Through the rolling concordance of sounds 
 
 In undulations far-echoing skyward. 
 
 But at last the chanted hurricane 
 
 Had exhausted its fury, 
 
 And was dying down to its close, 
 
 When a raucous note was heard 
 
 Defiant in demonic scorn. 
 
 Whence so sudden a discord? 
 
 One black Titan had pushed to the front 
 
 Who bowed not the head nor echoed the joy, 
 
 But sneered his damnation 
 
 With Beelzebub s howl. 
 
 A prodigious dark hunchback he hobbled up, 
 
 From whom his own people shrank off 
 
 As in terror of Splayfoot present, 
 
 Stigmatising his look and his shape 
 
 With a nickname pat, the Black Crook. 
 
 Gigantic in stature with sleeves rolled up, 
 
 Displaying huge snaky folds 
 
 Of his bulged biceps and coiled forearm 
 
 Ending in a monstrous clutch, 
 
 Like huge-handed Ophiuchus 
 
 Strangler of Africa s jungle of serpents, 
 
256 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Balls up the black and crooked Black Crook. 
 
 He had been king of the horse-shoers 
 
 To Jeb Stuart s cavalry, 
 
 And rumor fabled among his folk 
 
 That he could break or disjoint the leg 
 
 Of the stoutest stud by his kick or wrench, 
 
 And that the wild rearing colt would cower down 
 
 Submissive to the dragon in his look. 
 
 He came from the Great Dismal Swamp, 
 In whose solitudes hung with thick gloom, 
 And peopled densely with reptiles 
 He lived as if in his own underworld, 
 Participant of some age geologic 
 Long foregone in our old earth-life; 
 Emerging thence to the light for a season 
 He became the black overseer of slaves, 
 Harsh and merciless to his own race, 
 Tasking them up to the death-line 
 With the high air of absolute lordship, 
 As if he were throned the king of Dahomey. 
 So he comes to the fore at this juncture 
 Hissing his hot spit-fiery words of defiance 
 Against his own people s liberation, 
 Even before their great Liberator: 
 "Nigger knows not what he does 
 A slave he will stay though free." 
 
THE AFRICAN JUBILEE. 257 
 
 Thus stood up the daring denier 
 
 To curse his own African blood, 
 
 Proclaiming dark forecast of evil 
 
 In the face of the day s Jubilee, 
 
 Colossal antitype of his race 
 
 Voicing its contradiction, 
 
 An omen which made the sunlight shudder 
 
 Illumining there its own night-side. 
 
 But the Black Crook had his shadow 
 
 Which followed him like the haunt of a spectre, 
 
 A negro woman, Mother Sibylla, 
 
 The seeress dread of Old Mountain, 
 
 The only one of his race whom he feared 
 
 As invoking a stronger-willed Genius 
 
 Than he could summon in spite of his muscle. 
 
 She stalked out fronting his malediction 
 
 Which seemed to call her up from the throng 
 
 Whose dumb heart she made vocal: 
 
 * l Get thee behind me, Nigger Satan, 
 
 Else this eye shall strike thee with lightning, 
 
 And send thee back to thy Hell." 
 
 Whereat Black Crook with howl antediluvian 
 
 Slid serpentine through the black mass 
 
 Hearing her menace infernal, 
 
 Causing terror new at his terror, 
 
 Till he had slunk out of sight to his night- world. 
 
 The President gazed in a stun of wonder 
 
258 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 At the dark drama playing before him 
 
 By two actors self-chosen, 
 
 A man and woman of the freed race 
 
 Representing its two responses, 
 
 The Nay and Yea to his pivotal act 
 
 Of emancipation. 
 
 He mused to himself unheard 
 
 On this pictured forecast of his deed : 
 
 l They have set before me another Fate 
 Now begotten and long to live ; 
 That black Caliban still exists 
 The far-back natural man, 
 And so does Mother Sibylla 
 Mothering her folk s aspiration, 
 Who now turns to me her rapt visage 
 Radiant with her black sunshine, 
 Yet prophetic of night. " 
 
 Then the sable seeress uplifted her eyes 
 Toward the high presence before her, 
 And failed not to point with her finger, 
 Emphasizing her scriptural idiom : 
 "I see you risen up yonder our leader, 
 Who after years of the Lord s tribulation, 
 Has got to the top of Mount Pisgah 
 And looks far out on the coming world 
 Of a people delivered, 
 
THE AFRICAN JUBILEE. 259 
 
 Like old Moses the Lawgiver. 
 
 Behold, we are crossing the river, are over, 
 
 We, the saved Israel; 
 
 But you, ah ! you stir not, stir not, 
 
 Still peering on high from Pisgah 
 
 Oh why tarry behind, though in Heaven! 
 
 Come with us, oh Saviour; 
 
 But no, I see it hover, the shadow, 
 
 The threatening daggered shadow, 
 
 You cannot escape, you swim out of sight, 
 
 You are gone forever, Redeemer, 
 
 Just at your happiest moment, 
 
 And your last is your highest " 
 
 Here her lips quivered but uttered not, 
 
 As she drooped down to a speechless swoon, 
 
 Seeress Sibylla, the black, of Old Mountain 
 
 In her clairvoyant rapture. 
 
 Stout arms lifted her helpless flesh like a lump 
 
 Fallen limp of limb and unstrung 
 
 After her beatific tension, 
 
 And piously bore her away, 
 
 While the multitude startled ducked down 
 
 In a tremble to the thrill of her trance, 
 
 Terrified at her dark prophecy 
 
 Which they all felt though not understood, 
 
 And muttered a charm against damned Black Crook, 
 
 Beelzebub s negro demon, 
 
260 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Whose magic had brought on this spell. 
 But how is it with Lincoln ? 
 
 He on his side thrills an overflow s throb 
 
 Sympathetic with what he beheld, 
 
 For it had touched him farthest down to the center. 
 
 He rose and circled about his chair 
 
 Driven by backstrokes of old presentiment 
 
 Which pulsed into memory, 
 
 For he could recognize his own first mind 
 
 At its lowest layer upturned 
 
 In the dream-built speech enraptured 
 
 Of this Ethiop oracle: 
 
 So he must syllable all to himself, 
 
 His prescient heart throbbing destiny : 
 
 "Well do I know it my triumph is death, 
 
 Defeat dares not slay me, 
 
 Success is my chosen assassin, 
 
 This Capitol fallen fates me, 
 
 Victory is my sworn destroyer 
 
 Undoing my years of disasters 
 
 From their start in the first deed of war 
 
 At Charleston Harbor, 
 
 Then undoing myself for the round-up. 
 
 How well do I know it my dated doom ! 
 
 Long have I forefelt, yea foreseen 
 
 My penalty personal 
 
 For my worthiest deed : 
 
THE AFRICAN JUBILEE. 261 
 
 That is the seal of mortality 
 
 Stamped on the highest human fulfilment 
 
 By the Powers above. 
 
 I know I must pay with my blood 
 
 Just for the good I have done 
 
 If it be of Time s greatest 
 
 Making eternal its chronicle. 
 
 Only thus at his moment supreme 
 
 May I truly example the Christ 
 
 Who suffered for saving a world. 
 
 But think of this mystery ! 
 
 Yon black seeress, Mother Sibylla 
 
 Must have felt this secret miracle, 
 
 Which lies deep in God s own mind, 
 
 Now being resurrected 
 
 Out of the depths of Nature herself, 
 
 For it is there and everywhere 
 
 To the soul that can fathom it. 
 
 But that dread deformity of her race, 
 
 Whom she called the Black Satan, 
 
 What is his message to me, aye to me?" 
 
IV. 
 
 The Black Crook. 
 
 .The dark-minded Titan of Africa 
 Now broken loose from his fetters, 
 And turned over to his own free self 
 To curse his new freedom 
 Or perchance to undo it, 
 Lincoln had heard as a witness 
 Testifying his race s character 
 At Richmond s Capitol. 
 And the outward shape of the prodigy 
 Would suggest the inner spirit 
 With the plastic transparency 
 Of Nature, the first artist, 
 Who molds the human stuff original, 
 Making appearance tell on itself 
 Just through its covering; 
 And the rude elemental energy 
 (262) 
 
THE BLACK CROOK. 263 
 
 Which lies now quiescent 
 
 In that craggy mountainous shape, 
 
 Starts the uncanny shudder 
 
 That it might from its unseen central depths 
 
 Break forth to volcanic violence, 
 
 Overflowing the land and its people 
 
 With its lava of white-heated passion 
 
 Sprung of sexed animality. 
 
 So Lincoln sinks back on himself, 
 
 Far down into his soul s first fountains, 
 
 Till he may see that African spectacle 
 
 As his primeval own; 
 
 Yea, he would find in himself this people, 
 
 Even malign Black Crook, 
 
 With all his human horror, 
 
 As some ancestral period still of his own 
 
 Even if long transcended. 
 
 So prying around among old remnants 
 
 Of his past personality, 
 
 He began with a lawyer s scrutiny 
 
 His own cross-examination: 
 
 "I would first ask of this dark folk 
 
 What is its evangel \ 
 
 Unconscious indeed, yet eloquent? 
 
 For it has one, and for me, 
 
 Else it had never been sent here 
 
 At this gathering-up of the past 
 
264 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Not only mine but the world s, 
 
 Yea, of futurity centered in Now. 
 
 Even malign Black Crook 
 
 Is as human as I am, 
 
 Bearing the same superscription of man 
 
 From the same common source of creation ; 
 
 His is the same fellowly mould with mine, 
 
 Borne both of us by the All-mother ; 
 
 So he shall have my fellowship 
 
 To be fellow-man, fellow-freeman 
 
 Aye perchance fellow-citizen. 
 
 But I have to mark on him his limit: 
 
 There is still innate in his soul 
 
 The Fate of Nature original ; 
 
 He has not yet made his own inner law 
 
 And enforced it upon himself 
 
 In Judgment strict, upright, unfailing. 
 
 So he has his own Fatal Line 
 
 Which I must help him transcend ; 
 
 For he too is come to his Crossing, 
 
 And rounds the turn of an epoch new. 
 
 Yes, that black race is in me, part of me, 
 
 A stage of mine own evolution ; 
 
 It reveals me my primitive manhood, 
 
 I heard a note of me sung in its song, 
 
 And I have barkened its seeress in vision, 
 
 Aspiring prophetess, Mother Sibylla, 
 
THE BLACK CROOK. 265 
 
 Oracling out of her soul s depths 
 What lies deepest in mine 
 Just my destiny s secret 
 Which at last overwhelmed her to silence. 
 Truly she is the benign of her people 
 Raptured to Heaven s dreams of the future, 
 Wrestling with God Himself in prayer, 
 Till she win even Omnipotence. 
 
 But my problem is demonic Black Crook 
 
 Misshapen of Nature and Spirit, 
 
 Deformity s very ideal. 
 
 Truly he is the malign of his people, 
 
 Goaded by Furies of passion untamed, 
 
 What can I do with him? 
 
 What is the future to do with him? 
 
 And what does his being say to me? 
 
 I cannot help thinking of Caliban 
 
 And his master, the humane Prospero, 
 
 Trying to train him to conscience 
 
 And dutiful self-restraint 
 
 Out of Nature s drunken delirium. 
 
 Then flits before me the daughter, Miranda, 
 
 Terrified, fighting to flee 
 
 From the clutches of the lustful monster 
 
 Who sought her in violence, boasting 
 
 He would people the land with Calibans 
 
 In his bestiality s revel. 
 
266 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Great God ! the ominous prophecy 
 Flung down on us here by the poet 
 And casting its baleful shadow 
 Through the centuries! 
 How can I gainsay it ! 
 
 Still Prospero was himself once Caliban, 
 
 But he does not say so 
 
 And perchance would never confess it ; 
 
 Though he forgot it, I must not, 
 
 For I was myself on a time Black Crook 
 
 Perchance in some jungle geologic 
 
 Like the Great Dismal Swamp. 
 
 His dark layer I still can trace in me, 
 
 So can every man looking within far down 
 
 If he dare not lie to himself. 
 
 But with this knowledge follows a duty 
 
 In sequence exact: 
 
 I must try to do for Black Crook 
 
 "What has been done for me, 
 
 And repay my old debt of kind Nature 
 
 Generous, altruistic Mother 
 
 Working secretly onward to Good 
 
 Even through Evil s tortuosities snaky, 
 
 Who has led me through forbears of aeons 
 
 All the way up from Black Crook and lower 
 
 To this individual Abraham Lincoln, 
 
 The President of the whole United States 
 
THE BLACK CROOK. 267 
 
 Now perched upon Richmond s Capitol fallen 
 
 Even if not destined to stay there long. 
 
 Black Crook must yet rise to take my place, 
 
 Beaching a mastery greater than mine 
 
 In the revolutions of Time 
 
 To be recorded of History 
 
 And to be sung by poets as hero. 
 
 Caliban even repented 
 
 And was restored by his master 
 
 After murderous conspiracy 
 
 And revolt against order established; 
 
 Yea, even after his bestial attempt 
 
 To do the nameless deed of guilt 
 
 Against humanity itself, 
 
 He was not burnt. 
 
 A devil, a very devil 
 
 Prospero called him in wrath, 
 
 And then undeviled him. 
 
 So thought I of Black Crook, 
 
 Still I must help him undevil himself, 
 
 Else I too turn devil 
 
 And I shall go down to damnation with him 
 
 In a common Tophet, 
 
 Unless I impart him what I am. 
 
 And the drama hereafter must run : 
 Prospero, ruler, philosopher, poet 
 
268 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Has to make over into himself 
 
 Just this hag-born Caliban, 
 
 Training the slave to be all what he is, 
 
 Surely with no little discipline, 
 
 And with many a backstroke despairful 
 
 Which may evoke an epoch s relapse. 
 
 Still Caliban is to go on ascending 
 
 Zigzagging down around upward, 
 
 Till he mount to top out the uppermost place 
 
 Surpassing the miracled master 
 
 Performing all his wonders of art, 
 
 In supereminence magical, 
 
 And as ruler bettering too the State 
 
 Much lapsed in the hands of rapt, book- worn 
 
 Prospero. 
 
 So the time must re-write the old poem, 
 Making it over into accord 
 With the fact paramount 
 Which now dominates History : 
 For man must go back that he go forward, 
 Conjoining the first of him into the last, 
 That he make himself rounded a whole 
 Of total humanity. " 
 
 Thus Lincoln s fantasy sped on a journey 
 Far away back to the ages hoariest 
 Far away up to the Future foggiest, 
 Following deeply his instinct 
 
THE BLACK CROOK. 269 
 
 That his career was more than national, 
 
 Even more than continental, 
 
 And reached forth to the incoming task 
 
 Soon to be laid on Earth s races of men 
 
 As elements constitutive 
 
 Of a higher civilized order. 
 
 Not of one race only he felt himself 
 
 To be humanly born, but of all 
 
 The first great omniracial man 
 
 Aye, the first of that name and character 
 
 Canonized with the heroship of races 
 
 By the world s synod supreme of Judges 
 
 Delivering here on our Earth 
 
 The Last Judgment. 
 
 But see ! who flits hither so lightly ? 
 
 A woman pulls him into the present 
 
 By her sudden appearance 
 
 And makes ready to tell of herself, 
 
 As Lincoln looks down from the Capitol 
 
 "Which she once built as her own, 
 
 Haughtily queening from its summit 
 
 Till today is the reckoning 
 
 When the President of the United States 
 
 Has taken his regnant seat upon it, 
 
 To whom she approaches in confession, 
 
 Nobb of dignity still 
 
 Even if humbled in mien and matter. 
 
V. 
 
 Virginia. 
 
 The humblest class of the Social System 
 
 In its new freedom s festival 
 
 Had appeared before its emancipator, 
 
 Who had heard its varying spokesmen, 
 
 Each revealing a strain of its character. 
 
 But next is forthcoming a lady high-born 
 
 Of the uppermost ruling class, 
 
 Former mistress of former slaves, 
 
 But now leveled herself to liberty 
 
 It was Virginia herself in person 
 
 Whose ghostly shape had risen again 
 
 To salute the Union s President 
 
 Now installed in her Capitol fallen, 
 
 Though she had once dared predict him 
 
 That she would take and possess the White-House, 
 
 (270) 
 
VIRGINIA. 271 
 
 Defying the Spirit of History, 
 
 Undoing the Union to chaos, 
 
 And therewith herself. 
 
 Four years had circled round her since then, 
 
 A time overfull of destiny ; 
 
 Lincoln in turn had presaged her his deed, 
 
 That he would go back to his grandfather s State, 
 
 Bringing the boon of enfranchisement 
 
 As his culminant work : 
 
 Whereof here was the high fulfilment, 
 
 For she too needed liberation 
 
 As much as her slaves 
 
 To whom she was herself enslaved. 
 
 How different was the meeting now 
 
 As the two stood facing each other ! 
 
 Let them graciously talk for themselves, 
 
 For each will make vocal the heart. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 "Well, Virginia! how changed in appearance! 
 Now you seem young, you were old before, 
 The same features I note in the face, 
 But wonderfully youthfully again, 
 Rejuvenant, aye transfigured 
 To mirror new depths of the soul, 
 And a new era. 
 
 Then I called you Mother Virginia, 
 Now I should title you Daughter Virginia; 
 
272 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 What have you done to yourself ? 
 
 Tell me the elixir myself would like of it 
 
 To iron out a few of these wrinkles 
 
 "Which bemock me with ugly grimaces. 
 
 Yes, genuine is the change, I see, 
 
 You are not painted, nor tricked out 
 
 By some woman s artifice 
 
 To us men incomprehensible. 
 
 Uncertain you smile enough of my banter 
 
 May we not hear the mystery? 
 
 Virginia. 
 
 Yes I shall have to confess it : 
 I have been re-born, though unwilling ; 
 The daughter of the Union I now am, 
 Though once I was its mother, 
 As you perchance have implied 
 In the play of your funning; 
 So I have to begin life over 
 Quite from its colonial start, 
 And re-build my society; 
 You are the man who has wrought this change 
 Aided chiefly by these children of mine, 
 The free States of the young North- West 
 Whence is your newer origin. 
 You have all come back to your mother 
 Bringing to her your youth and freedom ; 
 Though still my pride may resent it, 
 
VIRGINIA. 273 
 
 I am glad to be youthful again 
 And therewith to be free; 
 The mortification of failure is mine 
 Though it be offset with glory 
 Won by my soldiery over yours 
 On many a field victorious. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 You deserve all the glory of valor 
 "Which, I grant, was backed by conviction 
 Along with honor s devotion. 
 But how new is your manner toward me ! 
 No longer wrathful in speech, 
 Not so haughty, not so defiant, 
 But a look you show of acceptance, 
 An air of relief from some great burden ; 
 You seem to be freed of your slavery 
 To your own slaves; 
 With their freedom yours has arrived, 
 Free is the master just when the slave is, 
 As your great statesmen have often told you. 
 
 Virginia. 
 
 I admit much truth in the lesson 
 Which you have moraled me ; 
 Still my anxiety has not departed, 
 Nor will not, despite the new liberty. 
 I witnessed to-day from my outlook 
 
274 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 The wild jubilee of freed Africa s horde, 
 
 Of whom a dread suspicion lurks in me 
 
 Ever haunting my peace. 
 
 But my horror, yea my vengeance 
 
 Takes arms at the sight of that free Black Crook, 
 
 The darkey obsessed of the devil 
 
 Whom Nature herself has disnatured 
 
 As if she would token her malice 
 
 And play the Destroyer 
 
 In one of her vicious moods, 
 
 Such as she often has shown 
 
 In her earthquakes, reptiles and men, 
 
 For Nature has too her Abaddon 
 
 Whom Black Crook incarnates. 
 
 He follows me everywhere around 
 
 As my insidious shadow of evil 
 
 Turned free to abase me, 
 
 Even to rule me in my own home, 
 
 As if to undo my very existence. 
 
 Look! yonder I see him sneaking in stealth, 
 
 Snaky thwart of humanity 
 
 Afire with tropical passion, 
 
 Ever menacing me and mine. 
 
 I know he is here but an image 
 
 Which haunts me through all my soul-world, 
 
 Still the more fearful is the pictured ghost, 
 
 Because it ever seems on the spring 
 
VIRGINIA. 275 
 
 To leap to the hellish, reality 
 
 Right in my Holy of Holies. 
 
 Then at times I see alongside him 
 
 A ghostly counterpart, 
 
 The semblance pale of a white man, 
 
 Long-whiskered, wrinkled of brow, 
 
 With a cast of deep brooding on God s evil, 
 
 Whom I once hung for treason openly, 
 
 But secretly for his league with Black Crook 
 
 To whom he still is bonded as spectre 
 
 In my dreams and e en in my waking, 
 
 The white and the black ghost rising in turn 
 
 As if ingrown with my very conscience, 
 
 Which makes me even as spectre 
 
 To be horribly haunted of spectres. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Your misgiving has my compassion, 
 But time will bring its allayment, 
 Even if the ugly phantom of Black Crook 
 May not wholly be banned for years ; 
 Remember that he and his ill ilk 
 Have been lodging with you, yea within you 
 For more than two centuries, 
 And cannot be thrust out so easily 
 From your land, your life, your soul, 
 You say too, your conscience, 
 I may add, your heart. 
 
276 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Long and hard must be the untwisting 
 
 Of such deep-twinned strands of existence, 
 
 And their new adjustment. 
 
 But how strange is this enchantment : 
 
 To you, a spectre, spectres flit spectral, 
 
 As you do to me now still in the flesh, 
 
 Who am alive yet commune with pure Forms 
 
 Whose words I can understand as mine own, 
 
 Imparting me supersensed meanings, 
 
 Revealing me Providences most hidden. 
 
 But what thrills me all to surprise 
 
 Is your eerie acknowledgment 
 
 That the ghost of old John Brown 
 
 Is not yet laid in your borders. 
 
 Well do I know his wandering spirit, 
 
 For I have glimpsed and heard its wild song 
 
 At the head of marching soldiers, 
 
 Thousands upon thousands 
 
 Who must also have seen what they sang, 
 
 How his soul goes marching on. 
 
 But that march is now about ended ; 
 
 Why not be reconciled here 
 
 You two, the extremes of this period, 
 
 Antagonists filling with din an epoch, 
 
 Which now must be tuned to new harmonies ? 
 
 Let me be your mediator : 
 
 That jumps with my plan ; 
 
VIRGINIA. 277 
 
 Listen! the old Puritan comes 
 
 As a voice embodied 
 
 And makes obeisance friendly 
 
 To the high dame of the Cavaliers ; 
 
 His lips are starting, he wishes to speak, 
 
 Let us hearken his ghostly word 
 
 Telling us aught from over the bourne 
 
 For our behoof methinks; 
 
 At least let us listen. 
 
 John Brown. 
 
 I come, Virginia, my error 
 To say thee with sorrow s frankness 
 That my peaceless spirit find peace : 
 My invasion wronged thee deeply 
 Violating the Law s highest majesty 
 Of which I made myself judge supreme 
 Impelled by my Conscience, 
 Deeming it God s own oracle 
 Which solely prescribed my duty. 
 I am glad to see thee, Virginia, 
 And to offer atonement, 
 "Which may cheer thy day of suffering 
 And to me bring surcease of wandering, 
 For my soul keeps marching and fighting 
 The same old battle over and over, 
 Yet forever defeated, 
 Aye stretched anew on the old gallows, 
 
278 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Till I be given my wholeness 
 
 And forgiven my halfness 
 
 Just by thee, Virginia, 
 
 Who wast by me so madly injured 
 
 In thy law and also in mine 
 
 For thine is now my law 
 
 I avow it thee deeply, Virginia. 
 
 Virginia. 
 
 I am ready to meet thee halfway, 
 Though once I could not have done so, 
 And to confess my shortcoming : 
 I on my part have neglected Conscience, 
 Have thwarted it, even transgressed it, 
 In spite of many a warning 
 Given me from within and without, 
 By my own greatest sons, by the age, 
 And by myself in ominous forecast 
 That a day of reckoning would surely come 
 For the transgression, 
 Till to-day I have suffered the penalty long 
 Heaped up for generations, 
 But now expiated in full, I hope. 
 So I shall take thy Conscience 
 And unite it with Law, 
 Thus constructing new Liberty 
 Both for myself and for the whole Nation. 
 And the great Presence I also accept 
 
VIRGINIA. 279 
 
 Which I once defied in the White-House 
 When you stood before me 
 Seeking to know its behest and obey it : 
 And so you have won, Lincoln. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 What more could I pray for 
 From the Father eternal of Mercies! 
 Both of you, boldest and bravest, 
 Aye too the bloodiest, 
 The extremes of the sides contending, 
 Hitherto unapproachable by the beatitudes, 
 Angrily fighting each other, 
 Are now thinking quite the same thoughts, 
 And willing too the same will, 
 In a common emotion 
 May I not call it love ? 
 Therein lies the true Union restored, 
 Heart, head, and the deed of the twain 
 United in one soul 
 Who could have forethought it? 
 I proclaim this antipodal couple, 
 Cavalier and Puritan, 
 Dropping inherited hate 
 Into oblivion s Hades, 
 To be joined together in marriage 
 Beyond death s separation 
 John Brown and Virginia. 
 
280 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Scarcely was spoken the word 
 
 When both of the spectres had vanished, 
 
 But left floating upon the air 
 
 A two-voiced strain of a warning 
 
 Which seemed to breathe upon Lincoln: 
 
 "Though we be reconciled, 
 
 Others on each side still cherish revenge, 
 
 Haters of love and lovers of hate 
 
 Who will turn upon thee, Lincoln 
 
 Seeking to compass thy death, 
 
 And to undo thy work." 
 
 Such was the affectionate music 
 
 Hymning the note of threatening doom, 
 
 After which whispered a woman s voice: 
 
 1 Stay for awhile at my Richmond 
 
 Where thou art safe. 
 
 Return not now to thy Capital 
 
 Where is centered the danger." 
 
 The President felt the full forecast 
 
 Which was also his own. 
 
 But he summoned himself to reply: 
 
 "I dare not shirk the moment 
 
 Though in it lurks my fate 
 
 So long hung over my life ; 
 
 I must go and meet my lot, 
 
 To be the ransom of both revenges, 
 
 Northern and Southern, 
 
 Sprung of the war and long before ; 
 
VIRGINIA. 281 
 
 And if it so shall befall me 
 
 Let my tomb be honored in love 
 
 As that of the victim 
 
 Slain by the very Hate of Love itself." 
 
 Thus Lincoln sat brooding within, 
 
 When he was jerked from the thrust of his mood 
 
 By a messenger s cry berattling his ear-drum: 
 
 Eobert Anderson begs your permission 
 
 To call and bring his glad greetings 
 
 To the President of all the United States 
 
 At the Capitol of Richmond." 
 
 "What ! the hero of Sumter ! bid him welcome." 
 
 Said Lincoln adding, "I remember now why, 
 
 The war s beginning turns up this way. 
 
 He starts for the mansion s presence-chamber 
 
 To receive the guest of the hour; 
 
 As he enters the room and looks up 
 
 His eye rests on Washington s picture, 
 
 Who seems to smile down approval 
 
 And gleam a kinship of spirit. 
 
 "What is it that makes him so great?" 
 
 Queried Lincoln drawn by that Presence 
 
 To peer into the sources of mightiest souls 
 
 In a hidden wonder about himself ; 
 
 As he the miracle pondered of Great Men, 
 
 And sank in the depths of the mystery, 
 
 He fell to his revery s world 
 
282 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Where he beheld a spectacle speaking, 
 
 Heard voices of Ideas incorporate, 
 
 Yet the Prime Movers of human greatness 
 
 Strangely unfolding themselves in his spirit 
 
 And their ways of dealing with mortals. 
 
 "What ! more phantoms new on the way ! 
 
 Who come spriting me now? 
 
 What means all this pageantry spectral? 
 
 Think ! they flit the Genii immortal 
 
 Of Time s teeming appearances, 
 
 Guardians of History s grandeurs, 
 
 Gifted with vocables airy 
 
 To which I shall eagerly hearken, 
 
 For they are God s very gospellers, 
 
 And too mine own. 
 
VI. 
 
 The Spectacle of the Genii. 
 
 The First Gemus. 
 
 Here I throw off my Time-long disguise 
 
 Woven of gossamers fleeting 
 
 Which flash and vanish each moment, 
 
 Shadowy images of my one real being, 
 
 Known as events of the world. 
 
 I am the Genius of History, 
 
 The Overlord I of mundane occurences 
 
 Which I guide to my goal s ultimatum 
 
 Over persons, peoples, races, aye continents. 
 
 All of them manifest me in my travail 
 
 To bring forth the plan universal ; 
 
 They are my organs several outside, 
 
 While I am the whole within, 
 
 Director of Earth s temporalities, 
 
 (283) 
 
284 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 I the Super-President 
 
 Over all Presidents, Emperors, Kings. 
 
 Lincoln, to you I came but a stranger, 
 As you stepped into Washington s place; 
 Your first weeks in the White-House 
 
 1 fitfully haunted, a guest uninvited, 
 
 Yet not unwelcome, for you would know me, 
 
 And I also sought you, the man of the hour, 
 
 Bound whom as a center was whirling an epoch. 
 
 Slowly you came to fathom my purpose, 
 
 And me to discern in mine own right form 
 
 Working through all your trials, misfortunes, 
 
 And e en through your own greatest failures, 
 
 For every failure you learned to make over, 
 
 And aye too your faults 
 
 Into a new and deeper bond with my being ; 
 
 I could never shake off your hold of me 
 
 When once you had gripped me, 
 
 Even under my hardest chastising 
 
 Sent in war s calamities. 
 
 If I smote you, you only rose higher, 
 
 Knowing me better just for the blow, 
 
 Since you would recognize then my last meaning, 
 
 And hear in disaster the voice of the ages, 
 
 Voice universal of Justice 
 
 Justice now to be done to all, for all, by all, 
 
 Proclaiming my law as sovereign, 
 
 For I am the World s Tribunal supreme. 
 
THE SPECTACLE OF THE GENII. 285 
 
 Dreadful you deem my discipline, 
 
 But you have served your apprenticeship to me, 
 
 Me the stern pedagogue over the Nations, 
 
 Which I have trounced down the centuries 
 
 All the way from Euphrates hoary 
 
 And the primeval Nile-stream, 
 
 Through the Europe of many divisions 
 
 Mutually flaying and braying themselves, 
 
 Each ever seeking to swallow the other 
 
 And thus to bring forth a Union 
 
 But totally impotent; 
 
 Then I laid my inflexible hand 
 
 Upon your American people 
 
 Sparing not you in person the foremost, 
 
 That I train you all to take the next step 
 
 Out of the old world, so long my abode, 
 
 Into the new one here, your heritage higher 
 
 And mine too, as I strive toward my goal 
 
 Hid in the far-off aeons. 
 
 But you, Lincoln, have learned your vocation, 
 The loftiest on this watch of old Time, 
 Learned it and loved it e en under the scourge 
 You know my commandments, aye you create them, 
 The judgments of the World-Spirit. 
 You have grown to be one with me now, 
 My intimate dearest on Earth I deem you, 
 Transfigured into myself 
 
286 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Just through your new crucifixion. 
 With me you hither have come to Richmond 
 Over the bloody boundary fated so long 
 Which lately you have been bold to erase, 
 You my greatest vicegerent on earth. 
 And now in this Capitol s chair of State 
 You are installed with me at your side, 
 My presence seen of you only, 
 And yet wholly. 
 
 Here I shall you whisper a secret 
 Known to me alone concerning this house 
 Where we have taken supremacy s station : 
 Oft in the past I visited Richmond 
 Seeking to give my message to Davis 
 As well as to you in the White-House, 
 Impartial as History s spirit, 
 For I, the great Whole, am of both sides. 
 But I never could bring him to listen, 
 He had no ear, no soul, for my impress 
 But scouted my thought of a reckoning, 
 Insolent to me in victory, 
 Unteachable still by misfortune, 
 He never would take my instruction 
 Even when written most plainly by failure, 
 Ignoring, defying me, e en to the last, 
 Till I told him one day at his prayers : 
 " Lincoln is coming and soon will be here 
 
THE SPECTACLE OF THE GENII. 287 
 
 To preside in your seat at the Capitol, 
 
 For you have blasphemed me." 
 
 So I quit him being rejected, 
 
 I, the genius creative of doings historic, 
 
 And the father of Time s greatest offspring, 
 
 Have become entirely yours, Lincoln, 
 
 For you have affirmed, yea loved me. 
 
 Access you have to my innermost soul, 
 
 And you think with my thought, 
 
 And foresee with my foresight ; 
 
 Yes, you have risen to be one with my purpose, 
 
 And can decree of yourself what I am, 
 
 Voicing the Overself ruling all History, 
 
 And decreeing my judgment. 
 
 Hearken me say you another word : 
 
 Tis you who have made me known to your Folk 
 
 Through the gift of your utterance worthy, 
 
 That I indwell them more conscious 
 
 Than any people ever existent ; 
 
 Soldiers embattled are ware of my presence, 
 
 And those at home are cognizant of me 
 
 Reading your words that proclaim my edicts, 
 
 For you seem tongued with omnipresence 
 
 So quickly your speech fleets rounding the land 
 
 And even the globe with its races. 
 
 You are the new mediator 
 
 Between me the ideal, and the Folk the real ; 
 
288 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 I, the pure Intelligence 
 
 Must enter the Will of the people 
 
 Making it overflow into Time s loftiest deeds 
 
 Through you, the one Great Man 
 
 Bringing my hest to fulfilment 
 
 But here it comes, the Folk s Genius itself 
 
 And in its own right will bespeak you, Lincoln. 
 
 The Second Genius. 
 Let me gather myself together 
 And single appear to this Presence, 
 Endowed with one tongue: 
 I the multitudinous people s one person, 
 Call me the Folk-soul, 
 For I too have a soul and a voice, 
 I put on my semblance aerial 
 To be one of the muster of regnant ghosts 
 Convoked at this Capitol fallen 
 Eound you, Lincoln, the triumphator. 
 Though the second Genius I come to this place 
 In the order supernal, 
 Still I am your oldest acquaintance, 
 Even the first one of your first life 
 Reaching back to the cradle. 
 
 But not only from birth have I known you, 
 E en at conception I breathed on your soul 
 From mine own in creative intimacy ; 
 
THE SPECTACLE OF THE GENII. 289 
 
 I have stayed your familiar ever since then 
 
 Attuning all your career up and down, 
 
 Feeling my deepest unity with you, 
 
 Your personality brothering mine, 
 
 Till at last I show me to you in person 
 
 Here on this your top of existence, 
 
 When substances shadow themselves to your vision 
 
 And spirits dart over the border 
 
 To salute you too as their own. 
 
 I, the centered Genius whole of the Folk, 
 
 Am one, yet composed of many, 
 
 One soul made up of all souls, 
 
 Many millions of them together, 
 
 Individuals of the people 
 
 Summed all into one individual 
 
 Whose eidolon rises before you now speaking. 
 
 Ah me, what have I not suffered 
 
 In this crimsoned desolation of war! 
 
 Still the agony willing I dared, 
 
 To heal my partition to wholeness 
 
 Which I now for the first feel here with you, 
 
 Balsamed by your presence remedial 
 
 Into a soul and body integral 
 
 Hymning eternal their harmony. 
 
 So I have taken the desperate burden 
 
 Fulfiling the task put upon me 
 
 By the dominant Genius of History 
 
290 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 At one of his epochal nodes, 
 Whom I here see personal with me 
 Though long I have known his possession 
 Lurking and working inside me, 
 Obeying your voice, Lincoln. 
 
 And let me touch my fault in confession : 
 
 At first I shrank back from the outlook, 
 
 I would play coward to the "World s Order, 
 
 Till you bade me arise on Sumter s fall, 
 
 And harnessed me to the car of the ages 
 
 For saving the Nation. 
 
 Well do I know that I could not have done it 
 
 Without the right man intermediary 
 
 Between me, the Folk, and the Regent supernal 
 
 This Super-President over all History, 
 
 Whom too you have won as your own, 
 
 And drawn to this spectral celebration 
 
 In Richmond s Capitol. 
 
 You have been my teacher of the Eternal, 
 
 Of what is my function supreme among Nations ; 
 
 You can look back and say to me now 
 
 That you have led me, your people, 
 
 Round the pivotal point of the century, 
 
 Perchance of the whole millenium, 
 
 Putting yourself in line of the ages 
 
 With whose spirit you kept up communion, 
 
 And filling me with its sovereign behest 
 
THE SPECTACLE OF THE GENII. 291 
 
 Through the height of your word and deed. 
 Yours was the personal interflow 
 From the Prime Mover down into me, 
 That I do my part in the grand Whole 
 Which is the goal of the flight of the Earth-ball. 
 Before your time I was twain from my birth, 
 But here I feel first my integrity 
 Through you the Folk-soul s healer, 
 Tapping the high remedial world above me 
 And letting it stream down into my scission, 
 To heal me to health and wholeness. 
 Your brain, I repeat, was the middleman 
 Through whom I won myself whole, 
 Imbued with the Genius of History 
 Upper artificer of Time s high happenings 
 In the movement of all the Globe s peoples 
 Bounding their continents. 
 
 But hold ! that voice of our overworld 
 
 Gives signal once more of imparting its message 
 
 To you, its foremost intelligencer. 
 
 So I shall crouch behind it and listen 
 
 For I still have something to learn. 
 
 The First Genius Again. 
 
 One more confession I yet have to breathe you, 
 Which I omitted before, Lincoln ; 
 You have risen to be my teacher, 
 
292 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 As I have been yours ; 
 
 I too have been taking a lesson 
 
 Even while giving you mine, 
 
 For I have had to unfold into being 
 
 With the Time s evolution and yours. 
 
 Now incorporate in your career I have grown ; 
 
 Only a thought I previously fleeted 
 
 Which must utter its last completion 
 
 Incarnate in the epoch s Great Man. 
 
 But you have made me rightly real, 
 
 Bringing me down to indwell the whole people ; 
 
 Henceforth in you I shall live through the ages, 
 
 Even if I have told my nodes of existence 
 
 In the past of other famed Nations. 
 
 For a new orb of my life I enter with you, 
 
 You have transformed me, Lincoln, 
 
 Me, the world-orderer regal 
 
 You have made a democrat; 
 
 Hitherto I was History s autocrat, 
 
 Dictating to Statesmen and States, 
 
 Throned above their supremacy, 
 
 The monarch over monarchies, 
 
 Ruling them all from above downward; 
 
 And so still I must do, not here 
 
 But across the two oceans, 
 
 Where lies brooding the huge hemispherical East 
 
THE SPECTACLE OF THE GENII. 293 
 
 Of Asia and Europe 
 
 My earliest home and your own. 
 
 But here I must build my new throne 
 
 Out of the people s very material, 
 
 Informed of their will and conviction, 
 
 Exerting my sovereignly thence 
 
 As you have set the example, Lincoln, 
 
 To me the Genius of the World s History, 
 
 Leading the people from within upwards 
 
 Through their own self-government. 
 
 And in the future, be it near or far-off, 
 
 I dare foresay the old Nations, the oldest, 
 
 Will be veering to follow your model, 
 
 Letting me move them too from within, 
 
 For I the World-Spirit have turned democratic, 
 
 Rejuvenant from my old days 
 
 Through you and your people, Lincoln. 
 
 Speak me, you too are spirit 
 
 Communing with spirits 
 
 Here on the Capitol height of Richmond, 
 
 Which now looks grandly transfigured 
 
 In this atmosphere ghostly. 
 
 The Third Genius. 
 
 So you adopt me, once the rail-splitter, 
 Me, simple Abraham Lincoln, the Westerner, 
 Into your high circle of Providences, 
 
294 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Exalting me to the third Genius 
 Who is mediator between you. 
 Yes I think I have known you both 
 As participants twain of my deed 
 From the beginning till now. 
 
 But see ! at my thought each is fleeting away 
 
 Mistily swooning out of my vision, 
 
 As the messenger calls me and calls me 
 
 With outcry renewed 
 
 To come down from your dream-world 
 
 Far over doming the top of this Capitol, 
 
 Into the presence of the day s visitor, 
 
 The hero of Sumter, 
 
 Who has also been drawn to this center 
 
 By some deep gravitation of soul. 
 
 Responsive he touches my mood, 
 
 Somehow his person comes up here 
 
 Interlinking the first and the last 
 
 Of the quadrennial struggle 
 
 Cycling my Presidency, 
 
 Rounding out Fate to Unfate. 
 
 Still I feel loth to forego 
 
 This spectral comradery 
 
 Of my overearthly visitation, 
 
 So used have I become to their intercourse 
 
 Which tells me the time s pure Essences. 
 
THE SPECTACLE OF THE GENII. 295 
 
 Unwitting I saw them fleet hither 
 
 And talk their ghostly dialect, 
 
 Which, me thinks, I have lessoned fairly; 
 
 Unwilling I see them depart 
 
 Well, here is the man himself in body, 
 
 Heroic of one turning event. 
 
 Welcome ! and lofty greetings to you, 
 
 Robert Anderson, fellow-soldier mine 
 
 Of long-ago and of now. 
 
VII. 
 
 Robert Anderson s Visit. 
 
 Anderson. 
 
 I could not deny myself the satisfaction of 
 felicitating you at this Capitol on my way to the 
 South. I am going again to Fort Sumter which 
 has had its second fall, not so noisy as the first, 
 though we intend to celebrate our new possession 
 of it by a little peaceful jubilancy. It is my part 
 to hoist the old flag over the spot where I once 
 had to haul it down, four years ago within a few 
 days. Thus I have been chosen to perform two 
 significant acts, betokening the outbreak and the 
 cessation of our great struggle. As I was passing 
 along this coast, I heard of your being in Rich 
 mond, and I felt that I must pay you a visit as 
 President of the whole United States. Then I 
 
 (296) 
 
ROBERT ANDERSON S VISIT. 297 
 
 would fain show you a mark of my strong personal 
 affection. 
 
 The President. 
 
 Our first hero, Robert Anderson! no man could 
 be more welcome ! In fact, my mind was reverting 
 to you as the starting point of this far-sweeping 
 turn of destiny which seems about to round itself 
 out to its conclusion just here. 
 
 Anderson. 
 
 It certainly looks so. In like manner my mem 
 ory has been whirling backward not only to Sum- 
 ter, but to that early day when I first saw you 
 soldiering in Illinois. But can you not come with 
 us now to Charleston ? 
 
 The President. 
 
 No, I must stay here a few hours longer, then 
 turn back Northward. Besides, I confess that the 
 time wrings from me more pity than exultation. 
 Still I issued the order for your festivity, thinking 
 that where the first gun was fired against the 
 Union, there should be a little triumph. But a 
 far deeper emotion overflows me than that spring 
 ing from your anniversary. I recall the evening 
 when the news of Sumter s surrender first 
 reached Washington. The problem crushed me; I 
 
298 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 knew not whither to turn, I thought I would have 
 to give up the ghost out of sheer anxiety, and I 
 still believe that the crucial moment of the Nation s 
 life was just then at the point of starting to toll. 
 Do you know upon what human personality the 
 future of us all pivoted then almost to the second ? 
 
 Anderson. 
 
 Upon you of course I can conceive of none 
 other. 
 
 The President. 
 
 Not at all but upon Douglas, my life-long an 
 tagonist, to whom my first task is now to do justice. 
 Without his support I would not have dared to 
 answer the attack on Sumter by the call for sol 
 diers. He came of his own accord that same even 
 ing and offered his service, which meant also that 
 of his party not only in the North, but also in the 
 Border-States. Here, perched on the height of 
 victory, I proclaim that with him rose to me the 
 future Union of these States. I was unstrung by 
 despair till I saw him enter my room at the White- 
 House, displaying his dark strong features knitted 
 tensely with resolution. The restored Nation 
 seemed to march at his side; it had still to fight 
 and to be fought for, but the possibility of it 
 dawned on the spot; what is now and here began 
 to sprout then. 
 
ROBERT ANDERSON S VISIT. 299 
 
 Anderson. 
 
 You speak with deep pathos, tinged with a sort 
 of penitence. But the country regards you as its 
 savior. 
 
 The President. 
 
 And I regard Douglas as my savior. He came 
 up and grasped me by the hair when at the point 
 of sinking. I intend to do him full justice by my 
 pen at the first leisure, if I find any such boon 
 while alive. And the country seems to have for 
 gotten his supreme service in the general jubila 
 tion. Still, only he and I ever knew the whole 
 story of that evening s interview, and the epoch- 
 bearing results which flowed out of it not only for 
 our country but for all posterity. But he is gone 
 and I am left alone to correct the record. Let this 
 fallen Capitol be my ever-jogging memorandum. 
 
 Anderson. 
 
 Douglas will yet receive his dues. But Mr. 
 President, I have made this little detour on my 
 trip to the South that I might bring back to you 
 some old memories with which my head in these 
 last weeks has been running over. I mustered you 
 out as a soldier in the Black Hawk War quite a 
 generation ago, when I was a young Lieutenant of 
 the United States Army, and you were a tall strap- 
 
300 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 ping fellow in Western butternut, but with yet 
 taller ideas in your brain which then gave token 
 of what you were to be. Your unique personality 
 left its impress upon me then, and the intervening 
 years have never blotted it out. You have become 
 a great fulfilment. 
 
 The President. 
 
 I am happy to have you think so. But what I 
 remember best is your discussion with Jefferson 
 Davis, then a young officer with you and others 
 in that border war against the Indians. When I 
 entered your headquarters to be sworn in as Cap 
 tain of volunteers, you and he were in hot debate 
 over the nullification of South Carolina transpiring 
 about that time, and you spoke of what might take 
 place in the forts of Charleston Harbor. Even 
 the possibility of attacking Sumter was then men 
 tioned ; Davis said he would open fire on it in de 
 fense of State Rights. Never shall I forget your 
 answer on the spot: "And I would fire back." 
 I have had occasion to recall your words and your 
 looks a thousand times, so that I can say also to 
 you in your own phrase: you have become a ful 
 filment. 
 
 Anderson. 
 
 So is it perhaps. Still mine was only the brief 
 little prelude to the drama of which you are the 
 
ROBERT ANDERSON S VISIT. 3Q1 
 
 towering center. But I too have never forgotten 
 that incident with its strange forecast. Indeed 
 when I went to Charleston Harbor as commandant, 
 the old thought haunted me as debated on the bor 
 der, and when Davis took his seat as President of 
 the Southern Confederacy, I could hear his former 
 words echoing ominous on the air. I always felt 
 in advance what was coming, indeed my actions 
 followed on lines which I already foreknew; I 
 seemed to have no choice, but to carry out the work 
 prescribed long since; and when the cannonade 
 opened on Sumter, I had heard it all before and 
 had seen its red glare crimsoning sea and land. 
 
 The President. 
 
 Similar has been my experience. How we pre- 
 enacted the far-reaching events of History out 
 there in that log cabin on the frontier! And that 
 Black Hawk War has often appeared to me as the 
 prophecy of my whole career ; I still live back into 
 it and glimpse its foreshadowing of things to be. In 
 itself it was hardly more than a promenade; I 
 never got sight of a fighting Indian, but I did 
 get sight of this rebellion and felt a faint premo 
 nition of my coming part. It was my first discipline 
 for my last vocation. I take pleasure in looking 
 back at it from this very place which seems to 
 
302 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 round it out to a finish, and to verify its predic 
 tion. 
 
 Anderson. 
 
 As the remembrance gratifies you, let me recall 
 something else which hit me an unforgettable blow. 
 It was that thump of your huge fist which you 
 brought down on the table before Davis when you, 
 holding up your hand high over him, had taken the 
 oath to the Constitution, which he had adminis 
 tered. It startled him, it seemed almost directed 
 at him as if he felt in it some far-off meaning which 
 time would interpret. He spoke of it afterwards 
 with a kind of forecast in his look. I wonder if 
 he is thinking of it at present as we are. If he is 
 like me, he can hardly help recalling that scene 
 with you in the log cabin. He must now be fleeing 
 for dear life from the awful hand once raised up 
 there before him to take the oath. 
 
 The President. 
 
 Poor fellow, I wish from my heart that he may 
 elude capture and get out of the country. If he is 
 taken I may have difficulty in saving him; 
 I have not the least thirst for a drop of his blood. 
 I cannot tell you how strong is my solicitude that 
 not another life be taken in this war ; no hangings, 
 no shootings, and very little prison, if any, for 
 
ROBERT ANDERSON S VISIT. 3Q3 
 
 these brave men who are now down under. I tell 
 you, Anderson, my sympathy has become two- 
 sided, for the defeated as well as for the def eaters ; 
 and my brain hitherto halved against the enemy, 
 is now getting to be whole, by including just them 
 into its scope. Only thus can I rid that old rent 
 out of me and out of the Nation. Our Union must 
 be inner, not outer merely, one of heart as well as 
 of authority. That division, now to be obliterated 
 I hope, I have often conceived in my thought as the 
 Line of Fate. 
 
 Anderson. 
 
 How strange again! My mind has been brood 
 ing over the same theme in a dreamy pre-figure- 
 ment. But this final act at Sumter floats before 
 me like a huge circle beaded with great events; I 
 call it the Ring of Fate which I am going to help 
 interlink and so finish. 
 
 The President. 
 
 Surprising vocable! how it fits to and fills out 
 my wonted words. My Fatal Line is thus rounded 
 out and brought to its completion; thus it has be 
 come rightly not the Ring of Fate but of Unfate. 
 
 Anderson. 
 
 And yet I have a dread misgiving of another 
 Fate suspended over us, some counterstroke to that 
 day of celebration at its topmost happenings. 
 
304 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 The President. 
 
 Such, downbursts of gloom are natural, I have 
 them too. But suppress all these forebodings, do 
 not let them cloud your jubilant mood; you will 
 survive as you did before in a far greater danger. 
 
 Anderson. 
 
 Farewell, my President; I may not see you 
 again. My presentiment aches for you. 
 
 The President. 
 
 Dismiss me from your mind, think of what you 
 are soon to witness. Over Charleston Harbor the 
 guns again will roar, the sky will be coursed by 
 streams of fire, the batteries on sea and land will 
 belch forth flames not now of death but of rejoic 
 ing, you will unfurl anew to the ocean s breeze the 
 dear banner which you were once forced to furl 
 you being the connecting link in the festal emblem, 
 which to my fantasy tokens for the Nation the 
 Ring of Unfate. 
 
 Anderson. 
 
 Somehow I feel unwilling to leave you in your 
 personal crisis which seems to be approaching. At 
 the sight of you my heart opens an eye within itself 
 which is dropping tears. 
 
ROBERT ANDERSON S VISIT. 3Q5 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 My brave soldier, invoke now the strong self- 
 suppression which your calling must have taught 
 you. But, since you so wish it, stay a little longer 
 in the city; I soon have to make a visit, when I 
 shall be glad to have you with me. Come to me 
 again this mid-afternoon, when I shall be free of 
 the impatient thoughts which are now thumping 
 in my brain and insist upon being born. 
 
VIII. 
 
 The Ring of Unfate. 
 
 
 
 Lincoln Alone. 
 
 So comes floating my whole life s round-up 
 
 In fleet panorama before me, 
 
 As I look out from this Capitol 
 
 Viewing the turns of the circling Past 
 
 With a glimpse of the shutting Future. 
 
 Robert Anderson is now to go back 
 
 And to take Fort Sumter uncannonaded, 
 
 Holding it as he did four years since 
 
 When the first bullet rebounded from it 
 
 Overturing the outburst volcanic, 
 
 And changed mad mutter to the red overflow 
 
 Signalling floods of carnage. 
 
 Thus that deed of the city and State 
 
 Once done in Charleston Harbor 
 
 (306) 
 
THE RING OF UNFATE. 3Q7 
 
 By all peopled Palmettodom, 
 
 Has returned undoing the doer 
 
 Through wide Space and long Time 
 
 To its original well-head. 
 
 The start and the close of the entire war 
 
 With its thousands of single encounters 
 
 Thousands of miles apart, 
 
 Winding all over the face of the land 
 
 Through four annual cycles 
 
 Have come together and interblent 
 
 Conjoining beginning and end, 
 
 As if to uphold the whole chain of events 
 
 Like the fabled coil of the world-serpent 
 
 Circling the sphere of the earth, 
 
 Suspending it safe above Chaos, 
 
 Till the grand overturn 
 
 When Cosmos itself turns rebel. 
 
 How the event doth whisper my mystery 
 
 And tell the secret of Providence 
 
 Through this God-souled cycle of Time 
 
 Almightily circumstanced, 
 
 Revealing the orbit of man s whole deed 
 
 In its struggles to get round to itself 
 
 Through all the devious turns of the world 
 
 And the human convolutions of soul, 
 
 That it bring back Justice eternal 
 
 To the spot whence first it was driven 
 
 Outlining the Ring of Unfate. 
 
308 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 But see ! a new chain interlinking the war, 
 
 Deeper and all-inclusive, 
 
 Whirling me too in its wide revolution 
 
 As it belts together the Nation. 
 
 It starts with the deed of Douglas 
 
 Who rises before me at present 
 
 The people s Fate-compeller, 
 
 As he hastened to me in the White-House 
 
 Having heard that Fort Sumter had fallen. 
 
 Still I behold his leonine look 
 
 Backed by the mightier will 
 
 Which braced me up to seal with my action 
 
 The pivotal moment then striking; 
 
 He brought me that eve the Nation united 
 
 Whose fulfilment has come about here, 
 
 And offered himself the first sacrifice 
 
 Which the Powers accepted. 
 
 I had not dared issue my call for troops 
 
 Without his assent, yea without his urgence, 
 
 For his word meant a million of men 
 
 With himself as leader in person. 
 
 I deem him my first enlisted man 
 
 And greatest of all of us then, 
 
 Since he centered the folk distracted, 
 
 Round the idea of Union 
 
 As the Nation s true destiny. 
 
 No, we have not done him justice 
 
 I must, I shall, ere this moon run its cycle. 
 
THE RING OF UNFATE. 3Q9 
 
 But the deed of his which envelopes me now 
 
 Is his last and mightiest, 
 
 "When he hurried forth to his State 
 
 And sounded the terrible tocsin 
 
 Rousing the West to its duty new, 
 
 Till it rolled down the roiled Mississippi 
 
 In living surges of valor, 
 
 And won the vast valley-home of the Nation, 
 
 Then wheeled Eastward to the Atlantic 
 
 Whence it turned to the North : 
 
 And yonder it lies with face toward Richmond, 
 
 Halted but waiting for word of advance, 
 
 Ready if need be but there is no need, 
 
 When the President is himself now installed 
 
 Ruling over this Capitol. 
 
 So here before me rises the Ring 
 
 Rounding the war s full circle, 
 
 Flowering out of that germinal action 
 
 Which goes back to Douglas 
 
 Uniting the North, dividing the South, 
 
 As the original seedsman 
 
 Who planted the germ. 
 
 Somehow again I vision my Fatal Line 
 
 Turning a shadowy bend, 
 
 Yet strung with mighty occurences 
 
 Over land, sea, and time, 
 
 Then warily winding just back to me here, 
 
310 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Closing together upon this height, 
 
 Enringing the War s grand total 
 
 In me as the loop of the first and the last. 
 
 So I stand here for the country restored, 
 
 Concluding the time s whole whirl 
 
 Which symbols unfating the Nation 
 
 From its division demonic 
 
 Bounding the Ring of Unfate. 
 
 How well I foreknow my uttermost portion 
 
 That whelms upon me the individual 
 
 Coupling me with Douglas again 
 
 In the grave as in life ! 
 
 Our dooms, I long have presaged, are one, 
 
 Though parted by the whole round of the war, 
 
 His at the opening, mine at the finish, 
 
 Our lots interlocked e en in death, 
 
 His uppermost point was his close, 
 
 And the same to me is decreed ; 
 
 The deeds of us both have been joined in one 
 
 Even when far asunder 
 
 As are the living and dead. 
 
 My end I must read in his, 
 
 My happiest day is my last, 
 
 And I forefeel its nearing arrival 
 
 In my soul s pleasure prophetic 
 
 With the moment propitious 
 
 Of the Nation s palingenesis, 
 
THE RING OF UNFATE. 3H 
 
 Whose sign is this Ring of Unfate 
 Omening godlike fulfilment. 
 
 Douglas, from yours, the first Fate, 
 
 1 have circled round through the years 
 To meet mine own, the last of the conflict, 
 So that both of us pass off together 
 
 In a common evanishment 
 Despite time s interval." 
 
 Lincoln drooped to his seat, 
 
 Smit by the sledge of his thought 
 
 For he saw perched over the Capitol 
 
 His counterpart pale looking at him 
 
 As if seeking to lisp him its secret, 
 
 Then sliding away to airy vacancy 
 
 Unable to syllable spirit; 
 
 Such he had often stared at before 
 
 In Springfield, e en in the White-House; 
 
 But now rose a spectral addition : 
 
 Out of his shadow ran rounded 
 
 The Ring of the Nation s Unfate 
 
 Between two personal Fates colossal 
 
 Pairing the time s greatest tragedies twain, 
 
 Deaths gigantic of Giants. 
 
 But see now the President s look renewed, 
 
 Not of sorrow but of radiance ! 
 
 As if he witnessed the very death of Death 
 
312 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 And felt Eternity *s seal his own! 
 
 Such a serenity has never been his, 
 
 Even his face grows fresh-featured 
 
 And loses its background of gloom 
 
 As if welcoming Fate. 
 
 He speaks soliloquizing his mood 
 
 In a wonder joyed at himself 
 
 Beholding his spirit s new pageantry. 
 
 "What! still other phantasms coming 
 
 To address me as one of their own ! 
 
 My whole being turns ghostly 
 
 Here in this Capitol as never before, 
 
 And a spectre I seem to myself 
 
 Now dealing with spectres 
 
 Which incarnately voice me, 
 
 As essences true of all of my sensations. 
 
 Look ! a fresh set of dim apparitions 
 
 Are shaping into my vision; 
 
 I mark their character different 
 
 From the forms gone before, 
 
 These seem mine own, born of myself, 
 
 Now gotten outside as if going to quit me, 
 
 Visible, even audible by me ; 
 
 One of them moodily flits to a figure 
 
 Like a vampyre prodigious 
 
 Darkening all my life s horizon, 
 
 Oft taking the head of Medusa 
 
 And snapping her thousand of snake-hairs 
 
THE RING OF UNFATE. 313 
 
 To venom each moment of Time. 
 
 Then behold a new semblance 
 
 Beside me upspringing in frolic 
 
 Burlesquing my Stygian moods ; 
 
 Crook-faced with an enormous grimace 
 
 Like the masque of laughter s own demon 
 
 Sporting grotesquery infinite 
 
 Against the curse of that Gorgon, 
 
 "With Mirth her poison to medicine. 
 
 Mark ! the two spectres make ready to fight 
 
 For supremacy still 
 
 Over myself tempered doubly 
 
 Between two extremes; 
 
 All my life I have known their battle 
 
 In perpetual oscillation haling me 
 
 Across my soul s sunlight and shadow 
 
 But I presage this duel their last. 
 
 Ha ! they first will address me in ghost-talk 
 
 Even our phantasms are fond of stump-speaking." 
 
IX. 
 
 The Spectral Duel. 
 
 Melancholia. 
 
 Do you recognize me, Lincoln, 
 
 As your oldest soul-mate and closest ? 
 
 I have taken this shape for your sight, 
 
 Hitherto formless within you lurking 
 
 For now you must see me outside you, 
 
 Me, as I am, Melancholia 
 
 Wont to suck out your heart s hottest hope. 
 
 Note this body, these bat-wings clawed, 
 
 Watch me grin my monstrous incisors 
 
 And pucker my devilish lips 
 
 Whose dark burrow would pierce to your life s 
 
 spring, 
 
 Your inner Vampyre I show me 
 Now pushed to take figure before you 
 Flitting outside as hitherto never 
 
 (314) 
 
THE SPECTRAL DUEL. 315 
 
 Since I dropped on your life ante-natal. 
 
 For as your soul fell down into Time 
 
 Turned off from its source at its birth 
 
 I came with it to being ; 
 
 You as a child, as a youth, as a man, 
 
 And you as President I have haunted 
 
 "With Fate s inevitable night-wings, 
 
 Following ever your life-line 
 
 As its demonic familiar, 
 
 Up till this nodal moment of yours 
 
 Rounding the Ring of Unfate, 
 
 When I feel myself exorcised 
 
 By your new-born self here throned 
 
 And in this Capitol won. 
 
 Lincoln, I answer your unasked question 
 How I became your earliest intimate : 
 In your begetting you were twinned one 
 With the heart of your people ; 
 The cloud overhanging the Folk-soul 
 Spread through your single receptive soul 
 At the throb of its primal conception, 
 And darkened your days till the present, 
 As if your parentage were the whole country. 
 The Nation well knew the spectre of me 
 Of night-eyed me, Melancholia 
 Forefeeling the approach of a judgment 
 With the sword overarching 
 
316 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Which threatened to hew it in two. 
 You were born into that gloom s foreshadow 
 And in it did share by creation 
 From your earliest being atomic. 
 
 But now that overcast gloom of division 
 
 Which was begotten into this Nation 
 
 At the first throb of its origin, 
 
 And into its Law, aye into its Conscience, 
 
 Was likewise born into you, Lincoln, 
 
 You being its mole-marked child 
 
 Of largest inheritance. 
 
 But I shall freely make my confession : 
 
 The hour is close when I must vanish 
 
 Out of both together, both you and the Nation 
 
 As intercreated of each other, 
 
 For the Fatal Line no longer exists 
 
 Which begat me and nourished me 
 
 In each person and the whole people 
 
 Me, soul-shadowing Melancholia, 
 
 Who cast my glowering semblance 
 
 Upon the blanched Folk-soul foreboding, 
 
 As it saw the raised blade of separation 
 
 Flash over the hope of the Union 
 
 From the first day of its origin. 
 
 Hark ! that music ! I cannot endure it ! 
 The concord of national jubilation 
 
THE SPECTRAL DUEL. 317 
 
 Rifts me through and through, 
 
 Till my gloom bears off into nowhere 
 
 And leaves me a nothing. 
 
 Now I must go, no more I am yours 
 
 Since you have flung me out of yourself 
 
 To view me as object, 
 
 Where I cannot exist, 
 
 Being torn from myself. 
 
 Then those harmonies horribly grate me 
 
 Which you have made your own inwardly : 
 
 List ! Conscience and Law, both inner and outer, 
 
 Attuned to one joyous key-note, 
 
 And choiring in unison soul-deep 
 
 Their new world-bearing atonement. 
 
 Twas on their discord I fed hitherto 
 
 When they were dual within and without, 
 
 Each fighting itself and fighting the other, 
 
 Creating despair in hearts patriotic. 
 
 Then I throve in your inner existence 
 
 Glooming my darkness congenial ; 
 
 But now both worlds, your own and the Folk s 
 
 Are turning transmuted to light and to hope. 
 
 See yonder! What grisly grimaces horrible 
 
 Caricaturing me in my native glum-glums 
 
 With far-echoing cachinnations ! 
 
 Tis my anti-self coming hither 
 
 Always playing the clown to me fiendishly. 
 
318 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Off I must fly for a time, Lincoln, 
 But on the imp I still shall avenge me 
 I go, but I shall come back. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Vampyre, are you then gone indeed ! 
 Can it be you 
 
 "Winging away into Erebus, 
 Your home primeval! 
 How you have nighted my life 
 With your presence infernal, 
 Ever my day overshadowing 
 Till often I thought of ridding myself 
 Of the soul-clawing Harpy s world-gloom, 
 "When despairful of betterment, 
 By one last stroke of releasing Death ! 
 You have stood in my spirit s sunshine 
 Crunching my days into chaos, 
 Ever since memory s dawn, 
 
 Melancholia, my murky yoke-fellow, 
 Doomed me by the damnation of Dis. 
 But hark! a music wildly approaching 
 Of song s maddest dithyrambics 
 
 Mid shouts saturnalian! 
 
 A motley shape laughs limned on the air: 
 
 Well! you old fun-maker, speak! 
 
 Momiis. 
 Long you have known me, Lincoln, 
 
 1 too am your soul s first familiar, 
 
THE SPECTRAL DUEL. 319 
 
 The counterpart sun-begotten 
 
 Unto night s misbirth, Melancholia, 
 
 Whose devildom always I shoo away 
 
 By my rollicking drolleries ; 
 
 Often you hearken my humorous genius 
 
 Whispering merrily fable, anecdote, story, 
 
 To scare off your phantasms fuliginous 
 
 By wee tee-hees and high ha-has 
 
 Grotesqueing my masterful incongruities. 
 
 So I, Momus, demigod antique, 
 
 Though ever re-born in your spirit, 
 
 Appear to you now on the outside, 
 
 Kecounting my services life-long 
 
 Against the Vampyre ever triumphant 
 
 When she met you alone in battle uneven, 
 
 So that you sighed for death up to God s throne 
 
 Till I might suddenly whisk to your aid, 
 
 And spray in the mouth of the monster 
 
 The light-flashing jets of my humor 
 
 Which was its bitterest medicine, 
 
 Turning it inside out up to sunlight, 
 
 Where its gloom gleamed into gladness: 
 
 Thus I became your soul s most intimate healer. 
 
 Soon I had imparted myself 
 
 To your veriest personality, 
 
 And colored your speech, your thought, your fame; 
 
 So I grew forming the bond congenial 
 
320 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Between you and the mirth-loving Folk-soul 
 
 "Which also would banish the Vampyre, 
 
 As the smotherer black of its peace. 
 
 I may not be deep in my thinking, 
 
 Or beautiful as to my mimicking phiz, 
 
 Still I was your primal cement of a laugh 
 
 Which joined your star and the people s 
 
 In a marriage eternal, 
 
 Making all hearts beat happy together 
 
 "With my titillations of humor, 
 
 Which run echoing all through your words 
 
 Me uttering, Momus your darling. 
 
 With a self -wondering stare, Lincoln, 
 
 You peer down into the depths of your soul, 
 
 And ask of your inner oracle 
 
 How dropped this pair so antipathetic 
 
 Into the first fount of your being? 
 
 Let me tell you the story, 
 
 For I too was there at the start, 
 
 When we were twinned together: 
 
 Mad Momus, sad Melancholia. 
 
 We were battling in the conception, 
 
 Paired antagonists even as spermules 
 
 In your mother s womb ; 
 
 Unborn, we grappled and fought 
 
 Like Cain and Abel of the old legend, 
 
 For your soul s full possession, 
 
THE SPECTRAL DUEL. 321 
 
 But with success ever varying. 
 Thus we started your seesaw of life 
 Swaying back and forth in a roundel; 
 Whirled between glowing and glowering ; 
 We kept up the swing of our duel 
 Through boyhood and manhood, 
 And both of us balanced about you 
 As you entered the White-House, 
 Still fighting each other in you 
 With alternate triumph and fall. 
 
 But more tensely than ever before 
 
 Melancholy won power to fang you 
 
 In the midst of the Nation s disasters 
 
 Unlocking your own deepest agonies ; 
 
 Then I would spring up her twin counterpart 
 
 To antidote her poisonous work, 
 
 Caricaturing her into a flight 
 
 By my mockery s antics 
 
 Which she cannot endure. 
 
 Thus I would outbalance the blood-sucker, 
 
 Undoing the Vampyre s hold, 
 
 To restore your life s equilibrium 
 
 That reason might sway you again. 
 
 But, Lincoln, let me confide you 
 I must vanish with Melancholia, 
 I feel myself waning already, 
 
322 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 No longer your day s deepest need 
 To outlet your soul s unborn sorrow, 
 For that is changing to Happiness, 
 New Goddess, shrined in your life s sheen, 
 Unmooded, soft-named Eudemonia, 
 Who will ban your first gloom of Nature, 
 And stop your old seesaw of Fate 
 Between Melancholia and Momus, 
 Bounding also the Ring of Unfate 
 Along with the Nation. 
 
 Heretofore we have battled within you, 
 
 Twinned together just through our difference 
 
 Whose cause is now uncaused. 
 
 We, Melancholia and Momus, 
 
 Once seeking to put down each other, 
 
 We also are fated here on this Capitol, 
 
 Our vocation soon will be gone 
 
 I must be off unless that Vampyre 
 
 Dares come back as before 
 
 To a final encounter. 
 
 For she is not as dead as she looks, 
 
 I long have known her woman s subtlety, 
 
 I have seen her revive out of joys extreme 
 
 And suddenly take self-possession. 
 
 But now I in my turn must droop. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Go not, my dearest companion, 
 Solacer true, my releaser of world-pain, 
 
THE SPECTRAL DUEL. 323 
 
 Healing my soul s primal scission, 
 
 I owe thee much gratitude, 
 
 E en if I be happier now ; 
 
 Still I know the approach of my counterstroke 
 
 My happiest moment is my last 
 
 I brood I swoon my two familiars again 
 
 They rise up antipodal, 
 
 Momus and Melancholia ! 
 
 Look ! they make for each other ! 
 
 The Duel. 
 
 Lincoln had sunk down into his soul 
 Quite beneath the line of self-knowledge, 
 Weighted by words of both phantoms 
 So insubstantial of substance, 
 Yet mightily real in his whole life, 
 Now seen by him as they are in themselves, 
 Beings disrobed of the dress of their deeds, 
 Stript of the glamour of circumstance. 
 But see ! the two plunge amuck of each other, 
 They have grappled in mortal wrestle 
 And are fighting their ghostly battle, 
 Tumbling their spectral forms on the air 
 Unclaimed of earth s gravitation. 
 Their last duel of thousands it is 
 Now to be fought out at Richmond s Capitol. 
 
 The Vampyre Melancholia 
 Spreads out her bat-wings 
 
324 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Till all the sunshine darts murky ; 
 Then she with the hooks of her pinions 
 Seeks to drag her antagonist 
 Into her night and there end him; 
 Next with her mouth she would leech him 
 Of all his joyous red vitality, 
 That he petition for death. 
 But the demi-god Momus runs ready 
 To countervail his hostile deviless ; 
 He pulls down his Olympian masque 
 Of the God s laughter all over-coming 
 Then himself yells a haha of triumph 
 Like ten thousand men, 
 Thrilling his foe to a smile unwilling 
 With a responsive echo in Lincoln, 
 "Who stands reverying deep into both, 
 As if dreaming far back to their origins 
 In the one first selfhood of man. 
 
 Whereat the twain do not again tackle 
 Renewing their combat, 
 But strive to give up to each other; 
 Melancholia sheds her darkness, 
 Momus drops his grotesque masque, 
 Both embrace and vanish all interfusing, 
 Self-undone in mutual transformation. 
 Behold, they become one fair shape 
 Is it a Goddess beautiful, stately? 
 
THE SPECTRAL DUEL. 325 
 
 Hither she moves and seems ready to speak 
 To the President rid of the ancient duel, 
 Eadiant of peace with himself, 
 Now restored to God s Harmony 
 First-born of the Universe : 
 Hearken the motion dulcet of lips : 
 
 Eudemonia. 
 
 Lincoln, I appear to thee greeting, 
 As thy new-born felicity, 
 Now thy young genius of life. 
 The old rent in thee and the Nation 
 Has gone out of thy soul with my birth, 
 Ended to-day thy inner scission 
 Between those doubles once with thee childed, 
 Momus and Melancholia, 
 Who waged the civil war of thy spirit 
 During all the days of thy life hitherto, 
 Till now concluded in peace of the Nation. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Beautiful Eudemonia, Goddess, 
 Of tenderest voice, 
 
 Fairer than Venus me thou beshinest, 
 Caressing me sweeter than Helen, 
 By name I have known thee my life long, 
 Yes, I often have lipped thy soft-flowing name, 
 But never before hast thou kissed me 
 
326 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Imbreathing thy love on my two extremes, 
 
 Blending in marriage my Gloom and my Mirth 
 
 Placating my contraries impish. 
 
 Enter me, take possession 
 
 And in accord with thy name s loving promise, 
 
 Be thou my good demon henceforth 
 
 Eudemonia ever propitious, 
 
 Make over my disposition uneven, 
 
 Angelic housekeeper mine be thou, 
 
 Steading my inner life 
 
 To the end of my days 
 
 With thy hallowed harmony. 
 
 But oh! the countersign fateful! 
 
 Again falls the forecast so leaden ! 
 
 Not long shall I live to be thine 
 
 My love is mortal to me, to itself, 
 
 Even to what it most loves. 
 
 But bless me as long as may be, 
 
 divine Eudemonia, guardian spirit, 
 
 Slide into my soul and stay there, 
 
 Be in it immortal, 
 
 And go with me beyond 
 
 Where is the Presence I long for, 
 
 The dearest hope of my heart, 
 
 The one whom I love still over yonder 
 
 Hark the dread interruption ! 
 
 What! some callers again! 
 
THE SPECTRAL DUEL. 327 
 
 High gentlemen yes I remember 
 And I must keep my appointment 
 With the Lady Eulalia Lovelace 
 To visit her wounded son. 
 
 So I ever must swing from Happiness 
 
 Back to the Hospital 
 
 As the Place of Suffering 
 
 Which still I shall welcome 
 
 As a part of God Himself and of me. 
 
At the Richmond Hospital. 
 
 Dr. Palmetto (alone). 
 
 What a curse has fallen upon me! Compelled 
 to witness the capture of Richmond and the last 
 gasp of Southern aspiration! I begged to flee 
 with Davis, but I was ordered to stay in charge 
 of this hospital filled with our wounded and dy 
 ing, like our Confederacy itself, whose Capital is 
 now under the heel of the tyrant. In these few 
 days, what have I not endured, deaths worse than 
 death! Would that the city had burnt up to the 
 last house, and I in it. Yankee bluecoats taking 
 insolent possession without a fight, black soldiers 
 proudly parading the streets on horseback and 
 the accursed Stars and Stripes flying from the 
 Capitol yonder. I turn away in a vomit, I cannot 
 stomach the sight! But if I fall back on my 
 
 (328) 
 
AT THE RICHMOND HOSPITAL. 329 
 
 thoughts, they are still more desperate. My be 
 loved States Rights trampled under foot; that 
 old despot, the Union, riding over them in tri 
 umph; our peculiar institution undone and the 
 slave set above the master; mine own South Car 
 olina, most daring and hottest-tempered of Com 
 monwealths, gutted from end to end by Sher 
 man s brigands; Columbia and Charleston in 
 ruins charred and soon, I hear, the Federal flag 
 which I saw lowered at Sumter is to be raised 
 again over that fortress. Is not that Hell enough 
 for one poor sinner? 
 
 And yet I confess to a deeper torture in which 
 both present and past are flaying my heart. Lin 
 coln has come to Richmond exultant over it and 
 me, the North s victorious tyrant is installed in 
 our Capitol. The South s very devil has clutched 
 her at the most vital point. But to me he is yet 
 more Satanic; memory brings me its bitterest 
 dose from far-back New Salem, where he was my 
 rival in love and won the dearest of Earth s 
 prizes from me, whose recollection still throbs 
 up into my life to-day. fountain of my heart s 
 wormwood venoming my daylight forever ! Hist ! 
 a rap ! a visitor appears, a woman with her unwel 
 come blue-bloused escort. 
 
330 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 The Lady Eulalia Lovelace. 
 Salutation to you who are the surgeon in 
 charge. I have learned you have a patient here 
 by the name of Captain Lovelace who was 
 wounded in the late battle at Fort Stedman. I 
 am his mother, and I have a mother s longing to 
 see him. Ah yes! I have scanned that face be 
 fore many years ago it is this must be Doctor 
 Palmetto, I knew you in the West on the banks 
 of the Sangamon, where you were my physician, 
 and you doctored this same Captain there when 
 he was a child. How dizzying the coincidence! 
 and it is not the only one. 
 
 Doctor Palmetto. 
 
 Your son is much improved; we have talked 
 together, and he has recalled to me those old 
 times which I would rather forget. You can go 
 in, but this your attendant I shall have to exclude 
 according to our rules, which have to be strict. 
 
 Lady Eulalia. 
 
 But here is a pass signed by the President of 
 the United States, permitting both of us to enter. 
 His authority, I suppose, is now supreme in Rich 
 mond. Anyhow this old man is a nurse whom my 
 son may need much obliged; that silent nod 
 means that we both may proceed. 
 
AT THE RICHMOND HOSPITAL. 331 
 
 Doctor Palmetto (alone). 
 
 What a humiliation ! Buffoon, demagogue, rail- 
 splitter, littered of the South s poor white trash 
 to give orders to Virginia s aristocracy! Think 
 of her handling and cherishing that vile piece of 
 paper from such a mudsill of a President, she a 
 Lovelace of the South s bluest blood! And trail 
 ing that old fellow after her, whom she thought 
 I did not recognize I caught his snaky eye 
 through all his white hair and beard, it was old 
 Mentor Graham the school-master abolitionist of 
 New Salem, whom I would have driven out of the 
 village but for Lincoln. And now those barbar 
 ous borderers, Huns of the West, headed by their 
 remorseless Attila, seem to be dropping down into 
 our devoted Richmond. 
 
 Great God! must I take this last pill of morti 
 fication ! Here lights upon me a note which reads 
 that Lincoln in person is coming to visit this hos 
 pital with some of his Northern understrappers. 
 Evidently he expects me to conduct him around 
 with the usual obeisances and flatteries due his 
 position. I shall not do it. Let him take my hos 
 pital if he wants it, I shall skip off and hide my 
 self in my office. Attendant, go and direct him 
 to whatever he may wish to see. 
 
332 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 The President. 
 
 "Will you please conduct us to the ward occu 
 pied by Captain Lovelace. And if his mother has 
 arrived, let her be present. Ah, here she is 
 already with her bandaged son. Let me intro 
 duce both of you to these three friends of mine, 
 who have accompanied me hither; they also are 
 taking a look at Eichmond in its present condi 
 tion. This is Marshal Lamon of "Washington; 
 General Robert Anderson of Sumpter fame comes 
 my next; and here is Senator Sumner of Massa 
 chusetts. Step up a little out of your modest 
 background, my ancient schoolmaster, and be 
 presented; gentlemen, this is Mentor Graham, a 
 man whom I love, formerly worthy torchbearer 
 of knowledge on our frontier, but now a tender 
 nurse to the Blues and also to the Grays. 
 
 Captain Lovelace. 
 
 Mr. President, my first word to you is, I am 
 glad that you escaped us. I intend my speech 
 should make you look puzzled so that I may explain 
 my riddle. Our hope was that we might capture 
 you down at Fort Stedman. We had heard of your 
 departure from "Washington, and your destina 
 tion was known at our headquarters, even the 
 hour when you might arrive. Most of your 
 secrets would be whispered underground to us in 
 
AT THE RICHMOND HOSPITAL. 333 
 
 Richmond. We thought that a last throw of luck 
 might turn you into our hands. We did not care 
 for the fort, which could easily be re-taken, we 
 were not after your Generals, not even Grant, 
 whose place could be supplied. We all felt that 
 you were the soul itself of the Nation, the Over- 
 General of all the Generals ; your personality was 
 our objective point, otherwise the attack was 
 foolhardy, despair s mad clutch of a dying cause. 
 But your guardian genius was too wary for us in 
 the end, though we made a good start, and so we 
 lost our sole remaining asset against failure. I 
 have had time for reflection, saying to myself: 
 this fight is a brief epitome of our whole cause 
 success as the overture but shipwreck as the 
 finale. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Another marvel! What you have told me, 
 tallies with the horrible dream which hounded 
 me as I lay asleep on board my boat while the 
 fight was going on. An enormous serpent coiled 
 along the battle line and undertook to lasso me 
 in its scaly loops. It was the hardest combat I 
 ever had with the original devil himself, till a 
 colossal female rose to help me and I woke. The 
 dream still makes the sweat bubble out of me at 
 the memory of it. 
 
334 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 Did I not tell yon that some such scheme was 
 afoot? But you will always laugh at my warn 
 ings, regardless of personal peril. You now ought 
 to realize that you are the topmost target of all this 
 war s destructive malice on both sides, which is 
 no longer in the open but secret. And this is not 
 the last plot, another more dangerous is brewing, 
 because more insidious. 
 
 Captain Lovelace. 
 
 Let me repeat that I, as a Confederate, rejoice 
 in your escape, and fervently wish that you may 
 still be saved not only to your people but to ours 
 also. I deem you now the hope of the South. No 
 doubt there remains among us our human portion 
 of personal rancor, but I notice by the newspapers 
 that your side is not free of a similar bitterness 
 in the North toward their kind-hearted President. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 I am well aware that both sections are to 
 learn mutual forgiveness and charity. To our 
 external Union of force and law now established, 
 we must work for an internal Union of heart and 
 conscience. But tell me, where is the main official 
 of this hospital, the head surgeon. I would like 
 to see him and show him my recognition. 
 
AT THE RICHMOND HOSPITAL. 335 
 
 Lady Eulalia. 
 
 Let me give you another surprise. You seem 
 not to know the name of this hospital s chief phy 
 sician he is none other than our old Doctor 
 Palmetto, formerly of New Salem, whom you cer 
 tainly cannot have forgotten. What a strange 
 shock his face gave me when he appeared ! I had 
 not seen or heard of him for thirty years, still I 
 recognized him by that peculiar cynical snarl in 
 his voice, which used to make me shiver. He has 
 more reason than ever to be champion fault-finder 
 with the world and with you, who was his village 
 rival in love and politics. He has grown gray 
 and sparse-haired, his countenance and its nasal 
 thrust are more sharp-pointed than ever, especi 
 ally when he slips around bent over to pry into 
 failings, of which he still finds enough for his 
 appetite. From his own account he has had quite 
 a career in our Secessia since you became Presi 
 dent. You know I never could altogether like 
 him or his State, nor did Virginia; still they 
 dragged us into this war by firing on Sumter, 
 for we could not stand co-ercion. Well, all 
 that is now settled, I suppose. He treated me 
 courteously, but took exception to the blue uni 
 form of my attendant here, and was going to ex 
 clude him; but I showed the pass signed by 
 you what an unearthly grimace did he make! 
 
336 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Still he let us proceed. But what an eerie sensa 
 tion! Four people of the long-vanished New 
 Salem I see here, having dropped from all direc 
 tions into this Richmond hospital! I feel ghost- 
 haunted by that departed village entombed upon 
 the distant Sangamon. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Four of us phantasms present ! "Well, I want to 
 see the fifth one, who cannot be far off. Doctor 
 Palmetto is still shy of me, but I shall ever re 
 member him. Marshal Lamon, you are the man 
 to fetch him; tell him with due politeness that 
 the President wishes to see him for a few mo 
 ments. I sent a note that I was coming, though of 
 course I did not dream that I was writing to 
 another New Salemite, and that too my all round 
 youthful competitor, Doctor Palmetto. Lady 
 Eulalia, I feel with you, only more decidedly so ; 
 I begin to think that the cosmic egg must have 
 been laid in our petty hamlet on the Sangamon 
 and is now hatching out after so long a brooding 
 time. I am starting to surmise that Providence 
 is continually passing down time in this unob 
 trusive way. 
 
 Lady Eulalia. 
 
 Look ! yonder the two are coming from the Doc 
 tor s office one in gray, the other in blue. They 
 
AT THE RICHMOND HOSPITAL. 337 
 
 do not step together in time, still they do not fly 
 asunder. Palmetto looks resigned like the rest 
 of our people ; yet he shows a protest against his 
 own resignation. Poor man! think what a train 
 ing in pessimism he has had! And now he has 
 to face the person whom he deems the victorious 
 instrument of all his great disappointments, ama 
 tory and national. And still he is the author of 
 himself. But now he is on hand to speak in his 
 own right. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Doctor Palmetto, you certainly will allow me to 
 give you a hearty handshake in Western fashion. 
 It has been a long time since we met last. Tell 
 us something of your life since ancient days. 
 You are a free man, speak out what lies on the top 
 of your heart. 
 
 Doctor Palmetto. 
 
 I shall give as good a dose as I have in my 
 shop. From your wretched village, I ran off and 
 wandered back to my dear old State of South 
 Carolina. I did not like your saucy North- West 
 with its boasted freedom and its crazy devotion 
 to the Union. In Charleston I practiced my pro 
 fession among its people, who felt the war coming 
 on and were getting ready to strike first. The 
 act of Secession was passed, and, of course, I sup- 
 
338 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 ported it heart and hand. Great was the excite 
 ment in those days, I was a member of a secret 
 vigilance committee to look after your Northern 
 spies. We came very near seizing and hanging 
 one of your Presidential emissaries, who was 
 registered at the hotel under the name of Ward 
 Lamon. I had tackled him with some questions 
 when one of our Congressmen came up and res 
 cued him, spiriting him off to the bar for some 
 spirits. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Quite an exploit ! I sent the man you speak of 
 to take a secret look into the affairs down there. But 
 what you say has just now a fresh interest. Doc 
 tor Palmetto, let me introduce to you Marshal 
 Ward Lamon, your affable escort hither a few 
 moments since. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 I remember you quite well, and your part in 
 the incident at the hotel. The fact is I got your 
 name that evening before I left your city, with 
 the feeling that I might meet you again sometime, 
 in the discharge of my duties. I assure you that 
 I shall protect you against any mob that may as 
 sail you or try to string you up to a lamp-post. 
 But enough of me; we all wish to hear of your 
 other feats in those memorable days. 
 
AT THE RICHMOND HOSPITAL. 339 
 
 Doctor Palmetto. 
 
 Marshal Lamon indeed! I had my suspicion of 
 you as I trotted along at your side. I noticed 
 the outer imprint of your two pistols on your 
 blue coat But I am not afraid, I shall dare tell 
 you the proudest act of my life. On that famous 
 April day of 1861, the llth at four o clock in the 
 morning twilight, I was on hand at my battery 
 of guns and pointed them at Fort Sumter, being 
 among the first to start cannonading your Major 
 Anderson and his garrison, who replied with ar 
 tillery. And so we kept up firing till they sur 
 rendered and we permitted them to embark for 
 the North. Thus we struck the first blow for se 
 cession, for slavery, and for our Southern nation. 
 What if we have lost them all! I glory more in 
 that deed than in any other of my life. I shall 
 not fail to celebrate it as long as I live, come what 
 may. I can still see Anderson and his men, de 
 feated and downcast, tumbling into their boats 
 after our great victory. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Doctor Palmetto, hold up your story for a mom 
 ent, to let me introduce to you General Robert 
 Anderson whom we call the hero of Fort Sumter. 
 He is here on his way to a ceremony of which you 
 may be interested to learn from his own mouth. 
 
340 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Anderson. 
 
 Doctor, it is for me a real pleasure to meet you, 
 I am instructed to hear you so outspoken. Per 
 mit me, however, to tell you that I am on my way 
 back to Charleston to take part in the celebration 
 of Sumter day, when I shall raise the old flag 
 over the same spot where I had to take it down. 
 So you were one of my cannonaders ! I fired back, 
 but I am glad that I did not hurt you. Will you 
 not go along with me? I invite you in all cor 
 diality to be present and to touch off your gun 
 again in honor of the festival, whose purpose is 
 to represent the undoing of what was then done. 
 You see your act belongs to the whole round, the 
 celebration will not be complete without you. 
 We intend there to loop the first and last in a sort 
 of emblematic ring embracing all the events of 
 the war. Come ! 
 
 Doctor Palmetto. 
 
 I would rather cleave open that whole ring of 
 bloodshed, and start the breach afresh. A small 
 but significant prelude of the conflict I took a 
 hand in only a few years before the war. I was a 
 warm friend and admirer of Congressman Pres 
 ton S. Brooks. I assisted in his re-election after 
 he had been expelled from the House of Repre 
 sentatives for his caning of your Senator Sumner, 
 
AT THE RICHMOND HOSPITAL. 341 
 
 who well deserved it. In fact I led in the work 
 of presenting to him, when he returned home, a 
 new cane bearing the inscription Hit him 
 again," which words were my suggestion. That 
 event was one of my proudest moments, and of 
 South Carolina s too. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Doctor Palmetto, let me introduce to you the 
 Honorable Charles Sumner, Senator from Massa 
 chusetts, who has come to Richmond to gather 
 points for his approaching legislative work, and 
 especially to look into the sentiments of the 
 Southern people at present. "Well, you have 
 furnished him a sample of one kind ; but I cannot 
 think that you represent all, even of Carolina. Now 
 is the turn of the great orator to speak. 
 
 Sumner. 
 
 I hold the contrary opinion to yours, Mr. Presi 
 dent. We have just heard a token which we may 
 well heed. As for me, I am still alive and at work, 
 while my Southern assailant soon passed beyond, 
 and the greater part of his friends have followed 
 since, even if a few remain. But the most strik 
 ing retribution is that South Carolina herself 
 has perished, having committed suicide with the 
 other seceded States, all of which must go back 
 
342 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 to the starting point and be made over, if they are 
 ever to live again. So now, my vengeful Doctor, 
 let me inform you that your Palmetto Common 
 wealth, which seems to have conferred upon you 
 its title, is as dead as your dear Brooks, and I 
 shall see that it stays in its grave till it does 
 works meet for resurrection. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Enough of oratory for the present. Massa 
 chusetts and South Carolina are again at words, 
 Webster and Hayne rise re-vivified here in this 
 Richmond hospital. Let the meeting be ad 
 journed; Lady Eulalia, take with you home your 
 son, my old friend Graham will help you; I shall 
 here have to say good-bye to the Doctor, as well 
 as to the Senator, and to the General. Lamon, 
 come with me back to the Capitol soon I must 
 be off for Washington. 
 
XL 
 
 The Two Hates. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 There you have it again another proof if any 
 were needed! Did you weigh the words of Cap 
 tain Lovelace They confirm the suspicion of 
 which I told you at the time, that the attack on 
 Fort Stedman was really directed against the 
 far more important fortress, namely President 
 Lincoln in person. His very sleeping-room, I ven 
 ture to say was known to the assailants. "What 
 a complicated net- work of espionage spreads out be 
 tween Washington and Richmond! I have been 
 burrowing after it for four years; no sooner do I 
 dig out and catch up one little thread, than I be 
 gin to trace another in full operation. Formerly 
 the danger turned not much against you personally, 
 but now you have become the center of all these 
 
 (343) 
 
344 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 secret machinations. That is a compliment to your 
 new importance, but it ought to make you more 
 wary of your great peril. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 My dear friend, you may be right, but I cannot 
 burden me with anxiety about myself. I shall 
 still have to turn that over to you, as your part 
 of the business. But I was struck with the other 
 words of Captain Lovelace, which indicated his 
 reconciliation with the new order. I hope it 
 foreshadows the prevailing sentiment of his class 
 and his section. Nor can I forget the many 
 heartfelt associations called up by his mother, 
 the Lady Eulalia Lovelace. And do you know 
 that I took a brief shiver at the spooky character 
 of the scene, as if it were an assemblage of ghosts 
 from the New Salem graveyard. The village it 
 self has long been dead, but somehow it still 
 haunts the world, and its disembodied spirit defies 
 space and time. Just think ! after so many years 
 and across so many hundred miles it lit upon me 
 here in Richmond! It made me feel that its 
 spectre and mine were deeply affiliated, and 
 would wander down the future and round the 
 globe together as strolling phantoms of History. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 I was never in the place ; I met you afterwards 
 when you were riding the circuit as a Springfield 
 
THE TWO HATES. 345 
 
 lawyer. But what most impressed me in that inter 
 view was the attitude of Doctor Palmetto, the image 
 of undying hate ; he might not give you the final 
 blow, but he could, I think, as physician adminis 
 ter the last dose if it might be done in secret. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 He is an old enemy going back to the Sanga- 
 mon; did you understand Lady Eulalia s allu 
 sions to his rivalry in love and politics? Never 
 mind that now; that story I may tell you at a 
 more idle hour. I care little for him anyhow, 
 he is a spit-fire more amusing than dangerous, 
 and he played for us a lively scene of his personal 
 comedy. But there was another man present 
 whose equally mad hate counts against the future 
 peace of the country, for he is one of the highest 
 law-makers of the Nation, which is now vic 
 torious. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 I know well whom you mean ; Senator Sumner, 
 who has thrust himself forward to be the supreme 
 representative of Northern hate engendered by 
 the war. Really he seems never to have recovered 
 from the assault of Brooks. I have had my eye 
 on him, especially since the Senatorial cabal in 
 which he was prominent undertook to snatch 
 from you the Presidential right of government, 
 
346 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 which, is yours. How often have I laughed at the 
 subtle way in which you thwarted the new dic 
 tatorship, not military, but civil! Sumner was 
 one of the master-spirits in that conspiracy (for 
 it was nothing else) and has never gotten over 
 his defeat. I have a record of his abuse of you, 
 especially in private; I am also well aware of 
 your too persistent attempts to conciliate his con 
 ceit. In vain; he is an enormous Egotist and 
 deems himself the saviour of the country. Still 
 he is not dangerous, if I can only keep you alive, 
 warding off the stroke of both Southern and 
 Northern hate, for I tell you both exist and are 
 at work. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 I know it and that is what begins to call back my 
 departed Vampyre. I name them the two Hates; 
 both are extremes, both come together in a com 
 mon purpose and principle: disunion. Sumner, 
 like Davis, shows the European consciousness 
 though from a different side; the one has reached 
 his goal by the anti-slavery road, the other by the 
 pro-slavery one. Certainly the Union cannot mean 
 to them what it does to me; the war was fought 
 upon the doctrine that a single State of itself 
 cannot secede cannot destroy the Union or itself. 
 Sumner seems to hold that the rebellious States 
 committed suicide, and must be reduced to prov- 
 
THE TWO HATES. 347 
 
 inces of the central government an un-Ameri 
 can, European conception which the Spirit of this 
 Nation, yea of this Continent, bids me transcend. 
 Sumner really makes secession a success, and deems 
 the Union to be divided, and would keep up the 
 division. I tell you, Lamon, he foreshows the com 
 ing problem sprung of the Nation s triumph. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 The two sickest men in that Richmond Hospital 
 were the Doctor and the Senator, even if both of 
 them were sound enough in body. They represent 
 the new disease, the new disunion, that of victory 
 itself. Mr. President, we have just visited the 
 national hospital of the time s fresh malady, and 
 have witnessed two cases diagnose themselves. Let 
 me state my opinion : you are again to be the healer 
 of this fresh separation, backed by our West which 
 does not share in the deep dualism of the old col 
 onial States South Carolina and Massachusetts, 
 Cavalier and Puritan, South and North, yea Doctor 
 Palmetto and Senator Sumner. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Lamon, I beg you to keep that last word of yours 
 unspoken, even if you think it true. But what 
 worries me is that the spirit of haughty domina^ 
 tion, which we once ascribed to the character 
 
348 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 of the slaveholder, is passing to the North 
 and threatens its democratic soul with a new sort 
 of autocracy. It is the old story: the vanquished 
 conquer the victors. I have been watching the 
 strange irony which lurks so deeply in human 
 events as well as in the human soul; the greatest 
 deed and the greatest man through victory show 
 the tendency to turn into the very opposite of 
 themselves. I tell you, Lamon, triumph runs the 
 everlasting danger of undoing just that work 
 which it has triumphantly done. I have been 
 reading Macbeth lately, and the desperate wrestle 
 of the hero with the Weird Sisters ; do you recollect 
 the expression "They met me in the day of suc 
 cess"? What a shudder those words thrilled 
 through me, since they start Macbeth on his career 
 from being the savior of the State to being its 
 destroyer. I confess to a similar fear in the case 
 of our Nation, yea in the case of myself. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 I cannot think your peril lies in that direction. 
 Still there is in what you say a deep truth which 
 I have had much cause to ponder. friend, you 
 have crossed one Fatal Line, and obliterated for 
 ever the national separation between Slave-State 
 and Free-State ; but I tell you another Fatal Line 
 has arisen with its new separation: that drawn 
 
THE TWO HATES. 349 
 
 between the two Hates already witnessed. The 
 test of adversity we have met and won, but just 
 this winning is a fresh and harder test, that of 
 prosperity, which may bring in its turn a relapse 
 to the sin which it has put down. Lincoln, the war 
 is ended and with it the old Fate; but now you 
 stand face to face with the new Fate which is also 
 to be met and transcended by whom if not by 
 you? 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Another task and perchance longer I see before 
 me, but unbloody I hope. What gives me most 
 faith is that the collossal military spirit with its 
 millions of soldiers headed by supreme and suc 
 cessful Generals will not set up its own authority 
 as it has always done hitherto, but will submit. 
 Thereby, Lamon, hangs a recent incident which I 
 shall recount to you some day, for of it you do not 
 know. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 Doubtless so ; still I can glimpse what you mean 
 as I have already observed its traces: you have 
 conquered the conquerors, for these, though in blue 
 uniform had also to be conquered. Another touch 
 it is of that irony which you have outlined to me : 
 you have thwarted the victors from undoing their 
 victory. I was not present at the act, still I as 
 
350 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 detective must smell out everything both for and 
 against; so I have sleuthed that some such thing 
 has been done, and you are its only possible doer. 
 Lincoln, that irony which you have uncovered is 
 really the Fate which you are now to meet and 
 overcome; you must not let our great victory be 
 turned into defeat either through soldier or civil 
 ian, through General or Senator, even when both 
 of them have no conscious intention of the kind. 
 Very elusive is that irony and often makes good 
 men its victims ; but you, I see, are not to be caught 
 by it. What a great lesson I have learned of you 
 during this little walk ! 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Here we are at the Capitol! How much do I 
 owe you, friend, as my interpreter, as my medi 
 ator, mirroring me to myself that I may better see 
 what I am. Will you not step in and stay awhile ? 
 I have something still more intimate to say to you, 
 something which I confide to no other mortal. The 
 vision of my love flits to me in new forms more 
 winning, more urgent than ever. At times she 
 seems to take me by the hand as if to lead me to 
 the other side. 
 
 Lamon. 
 
 Not yet, not yet, I hope for the sake of us all. 
 I cannot go with you further, I have been already 
 
THE TWO HATES. 351 
 
 a little remiss in my guard. What you have said 
 only deepens my duty to foil the blow of hate secret 
 or open. The interview to-day has given a sharp 
 nudge to my sense of responsibility. One or two 
 marks, though slight, I must at once investigate. 
 So let us separate under good omen. 
 
XII. 
 The Last Pageant. 
 
 Fate. 
 
 I am what the world calls Fate 
 And move it in might as its Overlord, 
 An adamantine Power pitiless 
 Defeating all outside me 
 Till I be defeated. 
 The Genius controlling events 
 And the man centered in them, 
 I rule till he may arise to his height 
 And then control me 
 If he share Primal Love. 
 Instrumenting human life, 
 Yet I too are the instrumented; 
 Though I make others my victims, 
 Therein mine own victim am I, 
 If the compeller of me appears; 
 (352) 
 
THE LAST PAGEANT. 353 
 
 My character gives to me back mine own 
 If the person be strong enough 
 To turn me about on myself, 
 And make me undo what I am. 
 For I, Fate, must be fated at last, 
 By mine own inner decree ; 
 Serving up to me rightly mine own, 
 In the end I am Fate to Fate. 
 
 Thus man and the world become unfated 
 
 Through the Supreme Justiciary 
 
 Applying mine own law to myself, 
 
 If the true man be on hand 
 
 Able to think it and carry it out, 
 
 Possessing what instruments this instrument. 
 
 Still I belong to the soul of freedom, 
 
 To its innermost process within and above ; 
 
 I am first in the deed, 
 
 Then my doing must be undone 
 
 To bring forth the fruit of liberty. 
 
 Thou, Lincoln, crossing the Fatal Line, 
 
 Transcending my bound, 
 
 Didst overcome me and reach freedom, 
 
 Freedom thine and the Nation s. 
 
 Thou wert ministered by a High Power, 
 
 By the Genius of History, 
 
 Who is himself at last Love s minister, 
 
 Whom thou hast won and made thine own 
 
354 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 And who is the ruler of me 
 
 In the grand sweep of the World s States 
 
 Directing me to its end. 
 
 This is the Upper President 
 
 Who has come with thee to Richmond, 
 
 Unseen, yet most real, 
 
 Conducting thee to this chair of new rule 
 
 And making thee Fate-compeller. 
 
 But take heed of my warning s word: 
 
 There are two Lincolns in one, 
 
 The fated and fateless, 
 
 My victor and yet my vanquished. 
 
 Lincoln the universal is here, 
 
 But when he passes to Washington, 
 
 He parts from what is above me 
 
 And drops down to the individual 
 
 Finite and fateful. 
 
 Then thou art fallen to my control 
 
 When thou returnest in triumph 
 
 To thine own Capital, 
 
 Where my sacrifice thou art to be. 
 
 Frankly I tell thee my secret, 
 
 For I the compeller, am too the compelled, 
 
 I cannot hide myself in thy presence, 
 
 But reveal what I am ; 
 
 So I tell this on myself to myself 
 
 And also to thee : 
 
THE LAST PAGEANT. 355 
 
 Lincoln the fateless at Richmond, 
 Lincoln the fated at the White House. 
 
 Forget not my power 
 
 Even if thou has found out its limit: 
 
 I was the Line, the Fatal Line 
 
 Implanted in the Nation at birth, 
 
 Inscribed in its Law 
 
 And seared on the soul of its people 
 
 Who could not overleap me till now 
 
 When thou, Lincoln, prime leader of men 
 
 Hast surmounted me here; 
 
 Easily thee will follow thy fellow-folk, 
 
 And then all the world. 
 
 And yet in this single defeat 
 
 I, Fate, have not perished from Earth, 
 
 Not even banned from thee am I, 
 
 With me thou still hast accompt, 
 
 As thou yet shalt have proof. 
 
 For I rise up in new form 
 
 Just to the hero who has put me down ; 
 
 A second Fate is born of the first 
 
 Oft sprouting up from its grave, 
 
 More certain, perhaps more terrible 
 
 Than ever before. 
 
 This new Fate must also be met 
 
 And if it can be, thwarted ; 
 
356 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Even I may become a third Fate 
 
 And more, yet more, 
 
 To all human finitude, 
 
 Till at last the Great Man 
 
 After victories many over me, 
 
 I clutch at the turn of his goal, 
 
 And whelm down to death. 
 
 And the Nation, however mighty, 
 
 Even yours I shall grip in its failing 
 
 And round it off with Time s period. 
 
 Aye the great World shall not escape me, 
 
 Nor shall the sun and stars of the firmament 
 
 Miss of my final doom. 
 
 And still I myself am doomed, yea self-doomed 
 
 In the last Presence of Primal Love. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Hark! that ironical scoff 
 At all things created, 
 Which it would burn up to nought 
 In its anarchic hate! 
 And yet it but raves in Hell-fire 
 At its own utter self-undoing. 
 But scan the metamorphosis ! 
 Sport of monsters prodigious! 
 No longer the hoar form of Fate 
 With its downward look impassive 
 Of necessity fixed primordial, 
 
THE LAST PAGEANT. 357 
 
 But the grimace of active revenge 
 
 Against all existence 
 
 And the Creator thereof, 
 
 As if had come the world s executioner, 
 
 To wind up the universe. 
 
 Fury, Medusa, Gorgon 
 
 Stop hissing and speak ! 
 
 Put thy thousand-haired tongues together 
 
 And tell what wouldst thou? 
 
 Fury. 
 
 I shall obey thy terrible wish, 
 For it is also mine own, 
 To tongue out my poison 
 In multitudinous hisses; 
 And I am not to be left out to-day 
 "When approaches the reckoning. 
 Vengeance is mine, the all-fiended; 
 It is not slain by victory, 
 But bursts forth to new life 
 From hidden haunts of old hates 
 When war s open revel in blood has ceased 
 Between the armies arrayed. 
 I, the Avenger of the Deed triumphant, 
 Shall sleuth out the fortunate victors 
 Just for my rightfulest victims ; 
 The highest one of them all 
 I shall choose and crown for my sacrifice. 
 
358 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Lincoln, thou art but a man 
 
 Even if victorious President, 
 
 Simple unit of flesh and blood 
 
 Bounded by all other units 
 
 Of the universe entire, 
 
 Mere individual lit with a light 
 
 Which can be snuffed out at any moment 
 
 Like a brief taper. 
 
 That is thy limit laid of Nature herself 
 
 Which I can break through with one stab, 
 
 And find thy single little life-cell 
 
 Where lurks thy end-all, 
 
 Which is the goal of my nature 
 
 Bent on destroying the great. 
 
 There thou hast thine own Fatal Line 
 
 Drawn on thee by primal Creation 
 
 When thou wert born into breath, 
 
 To exist merely a living atom. 
 
 Thou canst not bar me out 
 
 With all thy barriers of self -protection ; 
 
 Thou canst not dog me off 
 
 With all thy blood-hounds of secret service 
 
 Headed by the big Mastiff Lamon, 
 
 Who dreams he can stay me, 
 
 Or perchance slay me. 
 
 Thy Fatal Line tis mine to strike over, 
 For I too shall come to thy Crossing, 
 
THE LAST PAGEANT. 359 
 
 As thou didst to that of thy foes 
 
 Whose defeat I shall wreak in return, 
 
 Paying thee back the gift thou hast given 
 
 However great, good, and just. 
 
 Me, the Fury of finite existence 
 
 I dare thee try to escape me; 
 
 Invoke if thou wilt, thy Maker original 
 
 To dip thee afresh in his fountain 
 
 Of primordial genesis 
 
 To re-create thee deathless 
 
 Thou canst not wipe out thy bodied boundary 
 
 Stamped upon all individuation 
 
 That it first get to exist; 
 
 Just there I shall nip thee, Lincoln, 
 
 And turn thee over to death 
 
 Through thy being alive. 
 
 I seem to speak singly as one, 
 
 Still I am really many 
 
 As these snakes of Gorgonian hair 
 
 Which dart on their enemy common, 
 
 Yet also will rear and bite one another 
 
 In mutual venom of envy 
 
 Undreading themselves. 
 
 Such is our deepest self-confession 
 Mirroring what we are in the deed 
 When vengeance turns back on itself 
 In reciprocal slaughter. 
 
360 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Didst thou not see two of us Furies 
 
 In the two. Hates rising and hissing 
 
 Around thee and at thee secretly, 
 
 Yet at each other openly 
 
 When thou didst visit the Hospital 
 
 The two mad spit-fires of words red-hot, 
 
 The Southern and Northern? 
 
 From these two are born thousands 
 
 Paired in mutual hostility, 
 
 Begetting their like with Hell s fecundity, 
 
 As fruitful as the head of old Hydra 
 
 Is of its serpentine multitude. 
 
 Thus we Furies are ever re-born 
 
 Out of very finitude ; 
 
 Nature bore us at her first separation 
 
 From the All into individuals, 
 
 And Man in imitation 
 
 Perpetually begets the Fury, 
 
 Aye two Furies, and soon a million, 
 
 Who then turn in vengeance upon him, 
 
 With penalty due for our birth. 
 
 I am a lover of blood for its own sake ; 
 How dear to my eyesight it spurts upward 
 Heralding mortality 
 When I hit the right blow to the heart! 
 We would destroy mankind traceless 
 Were it not that we hate one another 
 
THE LAST PAGEANT. 361 
 
 In our universal hate, 
 
 And the Fury becomes the deadly Fury 
 
 Just to the Fury. 
 
 And so the Avenger at last 
 
 Avenges even his own vengeance, 
 
 And destruction wheels about 
 
 To destroy the Destroyer through his own. 
 
 And still I the Fury despite myself 
 
 Cannot die altogether; 
 
 Lincoln thou has undone me in one form 
 
 As thy Nation s Fury, and for one time ; 
 
 But I still survive, 
 
 Yea, I proclaim me immortal 
 
 As thy Personality s Fury. 
 
 Thou has wiped out division from the Union, 
 
 But not the ultimate division 
 
 Of thyself from thy Creator, 
 
 To whom thou art to return for judgment 
 
 The meed of all individuality. 
 
 There I shall smite thee at last 
 
 Lowering over thee even here 
 
 With my doomful forecast; 
 
 I the personal Fury begotten 
 
 Twofold of this ensanguined strife 
 
 Shall waylay thee from one side or the other, 
 
 Northern or Southern, 
 
 And let thy blood to its last gurgle 
 
360 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Didst thou not see two of us Furies 
 
 In the two. Hates rising and hissing 
 
 Around thee and at thee secretly, 
 
 Yet at each other openly 
 
 When thou didst visit the Hospital 
 
 The two mad spit-fires of words red-hot, 
 
 The Southern and Northern? 
 
 From these two are born thousands 
 
 Paired in mutual hostility, 
 
 Begetting their like with Hell s fecundity, 
 
 As fruitful as the head of old Hydra 
 
 Is of its serpentine multitude. 
 
 Thus we Furies are ever re-born 
 
 Out of very finitude ; 
 
 Nature bore us at her first separation 
 
 From the All into individuals, 
 
 And Man in imitation 
 
 Perpetually begets the Fury, 
 
 Aye two Furies, and soon a million, 
 
 Who then turn in vengeance upon him, 
 
 With penalty due for our birth. 
 
 I am a lover of blood for its own sake ; 
 How dear to my eyesight it spurts upward 
 Heralding mortality 
 When I hit the right blow to the heart! 
 We would destroy mankind traceless 
 Were it not that we hate one another 
 
THE LAST PAGEANT. 351 
 
 In our universal hate, 
 
 And the Fury becomes the deadly Fury 
 
 Just to the Fury. 
 
 And so the Avenger at last 
 
 Avenges even his own vengeance, 
 
 And destruction wheels about 
 
 To destroy the Destroyer through his own. 
 
 And still I the Fury despite myself 
 
 Cannot die altogether; 
 
 Lincoln thou has undone me in one form 
 
 As thy Nation s Fury, and for one time ; 
 
 But I still survive, 
 
 Yea, I proclaim me immortal 
 
 As thy Personality s Fury. 
 
 Thou has wiped out division from the Union, 
 
 But not the ultimate division 
 
 Of thyself from thy Creator, 
 
 To whom thou art to return for judgment 
 
 The meed of all individuality. 
 
 There I shall smite thee at last 
 
 Lowering over thee even here 
 
 "With my doomful forecast; 
 
 I the personal Fury begotten 
 
 Twofold of this ensanguined strife 
 
 Shall waylay thee from one side or the other, 
 
 Northern or Southern, 
 
 And let thy blood to its last gurgle 
 
362 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Over which I gloat in advance. 
 
 For thou art mortal only, 
 
 But I immortal 
 
 Lie crouching in all finitude 
 
 Which I must fray out and bray out to its end 
 
 Even through aeons of Time. 
 
 So in thy life s very limit of life 
 
 I lurk now awaiting the moment 
 
 To bring me my instrument 
 
 For doing the nameless deed. 
 
 And yet I confess me my suicide, 
 
 Being mine own self-def eater ; 
 
 I am the Fury of the tragedy, 
 
 But also the tragedy of the Fury, 
 
 Becoming mine own deadly counterstroke. 
 
 For a Mightier compels me the created 
 
 To damn and destroy the created 
 
 Because it is the created, 
 
 And so I belong in the round of creation. 
 
 Hence I must hate myself first, 
 
 By Love s own decree instrumenting me 
 
 Underneath my Hate universal 
 
 Which whelms me upon myself 
 
 That I unhate mine own very Hate, 
 
 And reveal Her who is the supernal. 
 
 Though I hate all Love, 
 
 And even the Love of myself I hate, 
 
THE LAST PAGEANT. 363 
 
 Still I am ever unmaking myself 
 And making appear mine other, 
 The Love which is thine, Lincoln. 
 
 See, yonder she comes in the distance, 
 
 Her eyes of grace peeping out of the clouds ! 
 
 O Devildom, protect me from her look 
 
 Whose loving compassion burns me in brimstone 
 
 Dipping me into your Hell! 
 
 Meseems I am turning inside out 
 
 To pageant the Fury s transformation 
 
 As I vanish. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Chimaera, depart ! 
 Fiend of earthly horrors combined ! 
 Headsman of God s jail 
 Which prisons all finitude, 
 Belaboring us with thy curse ! 
 Executioner of poor mortality, 
 So thou too risest before me 
 Here on this Capitol fallen, 
 As if to transform me to feelingless rock. 
 But I defy thee thou canst not touch 
 My possession of selfhood. 
 Yea, I hail thee as welcome, 
 For even to Hate I am hateless ; 
 Bear every addered hair from thy head 
 And hiss at me its venom, 
 
364 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Let thy visage grimace all Inferno, 
 
 Thou, Medusa, canst not chill me to stone, 
 
 As thou didst the old Greek 
 
 And all of his world till to-day. 
 
 Thy whole nest of venomous rattlers 
 
 Begotten of this war of brothers 
 
 I shall meet with my charity, 
 
 ThougH thou slay me, and thou canst, 
 
 And perchance must. 
 
 But see ! a new act of this goblined drama ! 
 
 Each Fury begins to snap the other 
 
 Twinned in a frenzy coiling together ! 
 
 Look again ! Each is now biting itself 
 
 In hottest wrath at its body 
 
 As if its own self -avenger ! 
 
 Oh behold! they droop, they vanish 
 
 Stung to mutual death. 
 
 One Fury remains quite alone 
 
 The original spokesman, 
 
 But it too turns away its contorted scowl, 
 
 Frighted by its own frightfulness, 
 
 Image of terror itself terrified, 
 
 And starts to flit out of view 
 
 At a new Presence approaching 
 
 Which has the power to ban it, 
 
 Yea to transmute it. 
 
THE LAST PAGEANT. 3(55 
 
 Another Semblance the opposite 
 Bearing the visage of Heaven s peace : 
 Who can it be, and whence I wonder ? 
 Hist ! she looks her evangel, 
 And her lips move, voicing it. 
 Ha ! I recognize thee now tis thine, 
 That tender glance of God the eternal ! 
 My first Love in person returning thou art, 
 That thou see me and speak me once more; 
 Let me hear thy sweet accent again, 
 Give me to list to thy promise 
 And I shall go with thee. 
 
 Love. 
 
 I come to drive out of thy vision 
 
 The ugly monster of Hate 
 
 Ever begetting itself anew 
 
 From the conflicts of Time. 
 
 With my spirit, I hasten to help thee 
 
 As I have often hitherto done, 
 
 Though never before have I bespoken 
 
 Thy presence with human words, 
 
 And this once is to be my last. 
 
 I take now the form of the maidenly grace 
 
 Which thou knewest so well in thy youth, 
 
 And which has lived all thy days 
 
 And still lives to-day in thy heart 
 
 As reconciler, consoler, lover, 
 
368 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Thy Double, hitherto shadowy, speechless, 
 
 Is subtly sharing thy vigor, 
 
 So closely you both interlive just now ; 
 
 See! he is gifted with the power of words 
 
 As never before; 
 
 Let me go and invoke him and send him, 
 
 For I know he has something to say. 
 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Stay, my heart s fondest image, 
 
 Thee I long for alone ! 
 
 How oft in the midst of my sorest trials 
 
 Hast thou risen and stood at my side 
 
 To be my one upbearer of hope, 
 
 gracious Presence of Love ! 
 
 My heart will throb out of my bosom 
 
 At the sound of thy maidenly voice 
 
 With the musical turn of its tones ; 
 
 Methinks I hear it again 
 
 At the sweetest fall of its Yes 
 
 Under the mulberry tree 
 
 Smiling down on us its flowers and foliage 
 
 With blessings unspoken. 
 
 Over my life thou hast hovered, 
 
 And with me hast come a guardian spirit 
 
 To dwell in the White House, 
 
 And now thou hast followed me hither 
 
THE LAST PAGEANT. 369 
 
 To this last seat of my triumph. 
 On Richmond s Capitol. 
 
 Here too I feel thy function supernal ; 
 
 Thine it is to reclaim my soul 
 
 From the scourging look of the Fury, 
 
 Banning the demon of Hate 
 
 By thy all-conquering presence; 
 
 To thee tell I my soul s last confession : 
 
 I long to let drop this wall of flesh, 
 
 Which still separates my part 
 
 From thee, Ann Rutlege, 
 
 That we become one in Love forever. 
 
 Hark ! I hear my call for departure, 
 
 I must now quit Richmond 
 
 And its old-new Capitol 
 
 Where has concentrated to one brief point 
 
 All my deeds of brain and hand and heart 
 
 In a rapid panorama. 
 
 Speak again, I beseech thee, 
 
 Tell me but she is gone, 
 
 And I must be off to Washington. 
 
 But my uplifting presentiment 
 
 Forecasts me vividly 
 
 That I shall there pass over the bourne, 
 
 To where soul is united to soul. 
 
 But just as I turn down the steps 
 
370 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Another semblance starts up and stops with me 
 Well do I know thee, my ancient familiar ; 
 Now word me thyself, if thou canst. 
 
 Lincoln s Double. 
 
 Greetings to thee, Abraham Lincoln, 
 From me, thy Self s right Semblable, 
 Foreshow of thy resurrection, 
 Talking across thy body s curtain! 
 Never before have I said thee a word 
 Not having the power to voice myself 
 In the days foregone; 
 But now thou hast drawn so near me, 
 Aye, art so at one with me 
 Imbreathing my very ghost, 
 That I may faintly syllable speech 
 Through thy veil of flesh which is mine too, 
 In defiance of man s fated limit 
 Between the Here and Beyond. 
 
 Hitherto thou hast done all the talking, 
 
 But now my turn it is at last to say 
 
 Just to say the last word. 
 
 Oft have I appeared to thee aforetime 
 
 During youth, manhood, Presidency, 
 
 But my lips were never unsealed till now, 
 
 That I, the immortal, 
 
 Could lip mortality in its own speech 
 
THE LAST PAGEANT. 371 
 
 As I now do to thee. 
 
 Let me tell thee my mystery 
 
 Which, is also thine ; 
 
 I came hither sundered from thee 
 
 By thy life s greatest sorrow, 
 
 Born of thy love for woman 
 
 From whom thy soul would not separate, 
 
 Whose death made no parting 
 
 Through the presence of me, thy Double, 
 
 Passing with her beyond. 
 
 Thus I breach thy wall of finitude 
 
 Which was also mine own, 
 
 Upreared between me on this side 
 
 And thee on that side. 
 
 This is thy Fatal Line personal 
 
 And it is likewise mine 
 
 Which neither as yet can transcend. 
 
 Each of us is but a shadow 
 
 I of the ghost-world, 
 
 Thou of the sense-world, 
 
 Till we become one, each in the other, 
 
 Attaining the Self s true reality, 
 
 Overcoming our long separation, 
 
 Uniting our Here and Beyond 
 
 In the eternal Now. 
 
 So, my Lincoln, thou must pass out of life, 
 
 And live forever; 
 
372 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 When thou art gone from thy people 
 Thou shalt be their lasting Presence ; 
 Death cannot touch thee there, 
 Though thy master and slayer here; 
 Thy deed makes thee omnipresent 
 Sovereign spaceless and timeless 
 Over the two worlds, outer and inner, 
 God s true Double. 
 
 In thy dying thou shalt undeath Death 
 
 Letting him do to himself his own deed; 
 
 Come over to me, Lincoln 
 
 And render thyself the arisen, 
 
 For thou hast made of thyself 
 
 Thine own resurrection; 
 
 Come over to me, Lincoln, 
 
 Redeeming thyself whole of Life and Death. 
 
 Of Earth and Heaven, of thee and me. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Come over to me, Lincoln ; 
 In thy dying undeath shalt thou Death, 
 Making him undo what he is ; 
 And thou shalt render thyself the arisen, 
 For thou hast made thee 
 Thine own resurrection, 
 Filling it with the fullness of fact 
 Through thy living career. 
 
THE LAST PAGEANT. 373 
 
 Come over to me, Lincoln, 
 That thou be resurrected eternal 
 Not only for once on a time 
 But every day and forever 
 Out of the hearts of thy people 
 And aye of the ages 
 Thus winning thy Godlikeness 
 Before the All-Soul sempiternal. 
 
 Come over to me, Lincoln, 
 
 But thou dost hesitate ! 
 
 So hearken thy loftiest fulfilment 
 
 Just in the Hereafter : 
 
 There thou shalt love still and yet more, 
 
 Thou shalt find thy first Love ever present, 
 
 Renewing in thousandfold forms, 
 
 Modeling humanity after it ; 
 
 Yea, thou shalt be Love itself in itself 
 
 Living its life ideal as thine own 
 
 And for man. 
 
374 LINCOLN AT RICHMONDPART THIRD. 
 
 Historic intimations, 
 
 The visit of Lincoln at General Grant s head 
 quarters on the James was not without a far- 
 reaching purpose. It was so timed that the Presi 
 dent should participate in the final act of the war. 
 Moreover it was the last important episode of his 
 life, the real conclusion of his career. It is true 
 that he returned to Washington afterwards but 
 only to live a few days, which were not of any 
 special significance. One feels surprised at the 
 weightiness and the rapidity of the events which 
 begin to start forward from Lincoln s arrival at 
 City Point, and never stop till the great struggle 
 winds up in peace. There is no doubt that he had 
 the deepest, even if largely secret reasons for being 
 present at this culminating stroke of the conflict. 
 He, the supreme civil functionary, deemed that 
 he should not be absent from the supreme military 
 achievement of the war. 
 
 Accordingly on the little steamer, Eiver Queen 
 with his wife and younger son, Lincoln sets out 
 for City Point, March 22nd, 1865. His bio 
 graphers (Nicolay and Hay) say for " relaxation, " 
 but probably it was the most tense and stren 
 uous stretch of his whole life, lasting some nine 
 
HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 375 
 
 or ten days after his arrival, with activities outer 
 and inner driving him with increasing momentum 
 till the end of the visit. 
 
 Part First, p. 19. The battle of Fort Stedman 
 began March 25th at half past four in the morning 
 by a sharp attack on the Federal outposts. On 
 the Confederate side the plan of battle was en 
 trusted to General John B. Gordon, whose some 
 what recent book (Reminiscences of the Civil War) 
 gives a detailed account. At first successful, the 
 assault ended in serious defeat for the assailants. 
 The fight must have taken place only a few hours 
 after Lincoln s boat had reached City Point, which 
 was not far from the scene of the conflict. Gordon 
 does not directly say that Lincoln s arrival was 
 known to the Confederates, but as Lee knew 
 through his spies what Grant had for dinner not 
 long after it had been eaten (p. 392) he must have 
 been aware of the far more important and public 
 matter of the President s visit. It is interesting 
 to note that Gordon, on being asked by Lee to give 
 his view of the situation, advised first of all, Make 
 the best terms possible with the enemy." He also 
 states that Lee agreed with him but that Davis 
 would not listen to any such proposition. Hence 
 the last despairing assault on the Federal line. 
 
 P. 35. Grant has given with some fullness in his 
 Memoirs the reasons why he kept Sherman s army 
 
376 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 away from Richmond. But one cannot help think 
 ing that he does not mention his strongest motive. 
 Lincoln was at first surprised at this sudden change 
 of plan, but he finally accepted it, evidently with 
 approval. Why? Doubtless he had very different 
 grounds from those of Grant, but he kept them 
 hid. Lincoln s secrecy though coupled with an 
 open, confiding attitude, has been celebrated by 
 numerous close observers and profound students 
 of his character. It may be questioned if we can 
 ever catch his deepest motives on the surface of his 
 words. 
 
 P. 65. That Sheridan was wheeling around 
 toward City Point from his attempt on Lynchburg, 
 and would soon be united with Grant, must have 
 been known at Washington before Lincoln started. 
 It was also known that Sherman would come up 
 from North Carolina and reach Grant s head 
 quarters about the same time. During three days, 
 March 26, 27, 28, the three chief Generals of the 
 Federal army were hovering around the President 
 as center, conversing upon campaigns, talking of 
 the future and past, holding reviews and even visit 
 ing soldiers at their campfires. On the 26th, Grant 
 took Sheridan to see Lincoln, and announced that 
 Sherman would soon arrive (Sheridan, Memoirs 
 II, 131) . Sheridan also was eager to have the army 
 of the Potomac wind up this last campaign by it- 
 
HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 377 
 
 self, and was unwilling to go to Sherman, as was 
 the original plan. 
 
 The three Generals have given us their records 
 of this visit with one another and with the Presi 
 dent in their respective Memoirs. On the whole 
 their notes of the occasion are meagre, though im 
 portant as far as they go. But what were Lincoln s 
 inmost thoughts during these three days? No ac 
 count of them has been transmitted, but he must 
 have been watching his own side as carefully as 
 that of the enemy. 
 
 He was no doubt very sensitive to the danger of 
 a military dictatorship. He had already had a 
 good deal of unhappy experience with McClellan 
 and Fremont in the early part of his administra 
 tion, both of whom were decidedly inclined to dic 
 tate, if not to usurp political functions of govern 
 ment (See Lincoln in the White House p. 179, etc.). 
 Then the opposition party and its press never 
 failed to keep before the public mind the peril of 
 a military usurper one of the redeeming qualities 
 of a free-speaking minority. 
 
 We can well imagine that Lincoln kept his 
 thoughts hid in regard to such a topic. Still on 
 a memorable occasion they burst forth with no 
 little strength. Lee had proposed a military con 
 vention made up of himself and Grant, "as a satis 
 factory adjustment of the present unhappy diffi- 
 
378 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 culties." Grant transmitted the proposal to 
 Washington. The Secretary of War handed it to 
 Lincoln, "who read it in silence. He asked no ad 
 vice or suggestion from anyone about him, but tak 
 ing a pen, wrote with his usual slowness and de 
 cision a dispatch, which he showed to Seward and 
 then handed to Stanton to be signed, dated and 
 sent" (Nicolay and Hay s Lincoln, Vol. X, p. 157- 
 8 ; one of these authors seems to have been an eye 
 witness). 
 
 This very significant dispatch, which must be 
 read not only on the surface, but under the sur 
 face and even above the surface, runs as follows : 
 
 "The President wishes me to say that he wishes 
 you to have no conference with General Lee unless 
 it be for the capitulation of General Lee s army, 
 or on some minor or purely military matter. He 
 desires me to say that you are not to decide, dis 
 cuss or confer upon any political questions. Such 
 questions the President holds in his own hands, and 
 will submit them to no military conferences or 
 conventions. Meanwhile you are to press to the 
 utmost your military advantages." 
 
 Noteworthy is the fact that this dispatch is dated 
 March 3rd, only nineteen days before Lincoln set 
 out on his trip to the James, where he had come to 
 think his personal presence would be sorely needed. 
 
 P. 131. The Confederate line of battle in the 
 
HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 379 
 
 East was broken for the first time permanently 
 from Petersburg to Five Forks, through Sheri 
 dan s great victory at the latter place. Lincoln 
 was at this line before Petersburg, passed over it 
 in company with Grant. The Fatal Line, which 
 had been so indelibly printed on his mind for four 
 years was now really transcended. 
 
 P. 137. In this last campaign the contrast be 
 tween Sheridan and Meade is of the sharpest, and 
 they may well stand as representatives of the two 
 diverse characters noticeable in the Western and 
 Eastern armies. Recently has been published 
 "The Life and Letters" of General Meade; it is 
 curious to see how completely he ignores Sheri 
 dan s victories in the Shenandoah Valley and 
 around Richmond. Compare on the same topics 
 the respective accounts of Grant and Sheridan in 
 their Memoirs. 
 
 There was an undercurrent of anxiety in the 
 cabinet as to what these military heroes might dare 
 in a political emergency ; and throughout the coun 
 try there was some solicitude mingled with the joy 
 of triumph. Lincoln certainly felt the possibilities 
 of the military character. Secretary Welles notes 
 in his diary about this time : * The President has 
 been apprehensive that our military men are not 
 solicitous to close hostilities" (II, 269). 
 
 Part Second p. 172. When Lincoln heard that 
 
380 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Richmond had been evacuated, he said at once that 
 he must hurry to the Confederate Capital in per 
 son. The river offered the most feasible way, but 
 this was regarded as very dangerous. Still he per 
 sisted. A little fleet was gotten together, which 
 steamed up the James, with every precaution 
 against unseen peril. Some twenty-eight or thirty 
 miles up the stream was the so-called Drewry s 
 Bluff where was a row of piles obstructing the 
 channel except a small opening which could be 
 easily closed. In fact it was already closed by a 
 boat which had through some accident swung 
 across the aperture and was held fast by the cur 
 rent. The result was that the flotilla could pro 
 ceed no further till the obstruction was removed, 
 which would have cost some hours. But Lincoln 
 was in a mood which could brook no delay. Several 
 other mishaps occured in the haste, till the out 
 come was that the President had to be rowed in 
 a barge by twelve sailors the rest of the way to 
 Richmond. The party landed within a block of 
 Libby Prison; there was no sign of escort or pro 
 tection, though the Union soldiery was already in 
 possession of the city, and a guard might have been 
 sent for. 
 
 But the President would not wait. He insisted 
 upon marching straight for Capitol Square, 
 guarded by ten sailors and four officers who had 
 
HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 381 
 
 accompanied him; the distance was estimated at 
 a mile and a half. Meanwhile many negroes and 
 some whites began to gather round the little group 
 with bold demonstrations which made the march 
 very f atigueing, since the President was soon recog 
 nized, being probably the best known and indeed 
 most individual figure in the country through 
 his stature, his face, and even his hat and 
 clothes. At last the party arrived safely at 
 the headquarters of the Federal Command 
 ant, General Weitzel, taking some rest and re 
 freshment. (Several eye-witnesses have left ac 
 counts of this trip of Lincoln to Richmond, dif 
 fering somewhat in details, but agreeing in the 
 main fact that Lincoln himself took command and 
 pushed by sheer will-power the enterprise through 
 to its successful finish. Foolhardy is the word used 
 by one of these accompanying officers. The more 
 searching inquirer will ask: What was the source 
 of the furious impetuosity of Lincoln just to per 
 form this act ? What deep necessity lay upon him ? 
 That indeed is what the reader himself must try 
 to fathom, since its outer manifestation is all we 
 can expect from the eye-witnesses.) 
 
 President Davis and his government had been 
 gone about thirty-six hours before the arrival of 
 Lincoln. April 2nd was Sunday when news came 
 to Richmond from General Lee: "My lines are 
 
382 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 broken in three places. Richmond must be evacu 
 ated this evening." The dispatch was brought to 
 Davis at church and he at once obeyed its in 
 junction to the letter, leaving orders to set fire 
 to the government storehouses, arsenals, and also 
 the bridges; the war vessels in the river were to 
 be blown up. The flames were borne by the wind 
 into the heart of the city, whereby some seven 
 hundred buildings were burned, and many people 
 rendered homeless. This conflagration could be 
 seen by Lincoln as he was rowed up the river, and 
 it was not extinguished when he arrived, though 
 the Union soldiers had stopped it largely. 
 
 Admiral Porter was one of the officers who ac 
 companied Lincoln on this trip, and has left an 
 account of it (Incidents and Anecdotes of the 
 Civil War, p. 281, etc.) Porter also tells how he 
 shielded the President from all sorts of intruders 
 at City Point, among whom was Vice-President 
 Andrew Johnson. There is no doubt that Lincoln 
 wished to be with himself a good deal during his 
 present escape from Washington. Porter conjec 
 tures that a man who tried at night to get to 
 Lincoln under pretence of delivering a dispatch, 
 was Wilkes Booth. 
 
 The most accessible account of the external 
 events of this Richmond episode is probably found 
 in Nicolay and Hay s Lincoln, Vol. X. 
 
HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 383 
 
 P. 218. The President in a dispatch to Grant 
 from City Point, to which he had returned, dated 
 April 6th, remarks by the way: "I was at Rich 
 mond yesterday and the day before," which state 
 ment would indicate that he was at Richmond two 
 days and possibly part of the third day. 
 
 His biographers (Nicolay & Hay, Vol. X, Chap. 
 11) fill this important time with two interviews 
 between the President and Judge Campbell in ref 
 erence to the return of Virginia to the Union. The 
 whole negotiation ended in smoke, and it is evi 
 dent that Lincoln distrusted both the policy and 
 the men engaged in it from the start. If this were 
 the net result of his stay at Richmond, it would 
 have to be pronounced zero. Of what was going 
 on inside Lincoln during this visit we catch hardly 
 a gleam in these biographers, who evidently had 
 little feeling for that part of his nature. We do 
 indeed hear of an informal reception and a drive 
 around the city to places of interest, also of a 
 visit to the Capitol. We read too that no narra 
 tive by an eye-witness "written at the time" has 
 ever appeared (Do. p. 220). 
 
 It so happens that within the past year a book 
 has been published (whose preface is dated 1913) 
 bearing the title "Pickett and His Men," by Mrs. 
 Pickett, who tells of the visit of Lincoln to the 
 old Pickett home at this time. Lincoln had known 
 
384 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 General George Pickett when a boy, and had been 
 the chief means of his being sent to West Point 
 for his military training. 
 
 Very graphically Mrs. Pickett describes how 
 she went to the door herself with her baby on her 
 arm, when she heard a rap. A tall man stood be 
 fore her, who said he was Abraham Lincoln. 
 Whereat she started back, with surprise and some 
 terror, saying: "My husband is not here. Lin 
 coln gave one of his all-subduing benevolent 
 glances with the remark: "I know that, I just 
 wanted to see the place." Mrs. Pickett s own 
 words should tell the rest. 
 
 "My baby pushed away from me and reached 
 out his hands to the stranger, who took him in his 
 arms, and as he did so, an expression of rapt, 
 almost divine tenderness came over his features. 
 It was a look that I have never seen on any other 
 face. My baby opened his mouth wide and in 
 sisted upon giving his father s friend a dewy baby 
 kiss. In my memory there is a perpetual abiding- 
 place for that wonderful voice, those intensely 
 human eyes, and that strong sad face. As I 
 looked at his honest, earnest features, and felt 
 the warm clasp of his great strong hand, I mar 
 veled no more that all who knew him should love 
 him." 
 
 Mrs. Pickett s report of her husband s sorrow- 
 
HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 385 
 
 ful exclamation on hearing of Lincoln s death, 
 gives a true forecast: "My God, my God, the 
 South has lost her best friend and protector, the 
 safest and surest hand to guide her through the 
 breakers ahead. Again she must feel the smart of 
 fanaticism. 
 
 The woman has, in this account, given us a 
 glimpse of Lincoln s Richmond mood, as we may 
 call it, which has not been recorded by any other 
 eye-witness. He brought his transformation with 
 him back to "Washington, where his change was 
 noted by a number of people. Says one observer: 
 "His whole appearance, poise, and bearing had 
 marvelously changed. He was in fact transfig 
 ured. That indescribable sadness which had pre 
 viously seemed to be an adamantine element of his 
 very being had been suddenly changed for an 
 equally indescribable expression of serene joy, as 
 if conscious that the great purpose of his life had 
 been achieved" (Harlan). At the last Cabinet 
 meeting on the last day of his life "he was more 
 cheerful and happy than I had ever seen him" 
 (Stanton). To the same general purport speaks 
 Secretary Welles in his diary. His constitutional 
 melancholy, so often remarked by himself and 
 others during his whole life, seems to have taken 
 flight. 
 
 This peculiar "transfiguration" of Lincoln at 
 
386 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 Richmond had also its note of premonition, if not 
 of preparation for what was soon to come. While 
 still on the James going homeward, he read too 
 or three times from his Shakespeare the following 
 passage with a tone which made it his own: 
 
 Duncan is in his grave, 
 After life s fitful fever he sleeps well; 
 Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison, 
 Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing 
 Can touch him further. 
 
 This was repeated in the presence of Senator 
 Sumner, who was of the party, and for whom it 
 may have been secretly intended, since Sumner 
 as radical had shown himself a decided enemy of 
 Lincoln. To some bitter remark about hanging 
 Jeff Davis, Sumner also heard him reply: " Judge 
 not lest ye be judged." 
 
 What Lincoln thought of Sumner s political at 
 titude and purpose is indicated in the following 
 citation of his words: "He (Sumner) hopes to 
 succeed in beating the President so as to change 
 this Government from its original form and make 
 it a strong centralized power. I think I under 
 stand Mr. Sumner. " (See Nicolay & Hay s Lin 
 coln, X, p. 85.) It is stated by Ben Perley Poore 
 that Sumner also wished to be President. The 
 
HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 387 
 
 reporter records that Lincoln not long before his 
 last day spoke of Ann Rutledge and repeated the 
 poem beginning "0 why should the spirit of mor 
 tal be proud?" 
 
 "We owe to Secretary Welles an account of Lin 
 coln s last dream on the night before his last day 
 of life, which dream he was bold enough to nar 
 rate at a Cabinet meeting, General Grant then 
 being present. The President showed also his 
 faith in what it prognosticated, for he had had 
 similar dreams "preceding the firing on Sumter, 
 the battles of Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, 
 Vicksburg and many others." Welles goes on: 
 "He said it was in my department, it related to 
 the water; that he seemed to be in a singular and 
 indescribable vessel, but always the same, and that 
 he was moving with great rapidity toward a dark 
 and indefinite shore." According to Welles, Lin 
 coln interpreted this dream as meaning another 
 victory, "and he was the least anxious of us all," 
 such was his faith in its truth. Johnston had in 
 deed surrendered, but there was no battle, espe 
 cially no naval battle, and so no victory. So much 
 for this glimpse of his later inner life, so little 
 noticed by biography. 
 
 Dr. Holland s Life of Lincoln, however, has 
 preserved a very suggestive interview with New 
 ton Bateman, which touches upon Lincoln s inner 
 
388 LINCOLN AT RICHMOND PART THIRD. 
 
 life before reaching the Presidency, and pertains 
 to religion, the Bible, a belief in Divine Provi 
 dence, the dealings of God in History, and a com 
 munion with the Supreme Being through prayer. 
 Mr. Bateman in surprise remarked: "I have not 
 supposed you are accustomed to think so much on 
 this class of subjects, and your friends generally 
 are ignorant of it." Lincoln quickly replied: "I 
 know they are, but I think more on these subjects 
 than all others and I have done so for years. 
 
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