973.7L63 
 B3HUUapo 
 
 Hertz, Emanuel. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln: His Favo- 
 rite Poets. 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
Abraham Lincoln: 
 
 His Favorite Poems 
 and Poets 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/abrahamlincolnhisfOOhert 
 
Abraham Lincoln: 
 
 His Favorite Poems 
 and Poets 
 
 By 
 EMANUEL HERTZ 
 
 February 12-1930. 
 
To 
 
 GABRIEL WELLS, ESQ. 
 
 n partial recognition of his help 
 
 to me in my work of gathering 
 
 new phases in the life and 
 
 the achievements of the 
 
 great Emancipator— 
 
 this pamphlet is dedicated, by 
 
 The Author: 
 

 Abraham Lincoln: His Favorite Poems 
 and Poets 
 
 By Emanuel Hertz 
 
 In the effort to dash off another life or biography of Lincoln, 
 flanked by one of those many constantly appearing novels for 
 the most part legendary, the genuine Lincoln is neglected. Sys- 
 tematic study of that great life is put off to some other day, and 
 those phases of his life which lend color and significance to his 
 constant mental growth and the evolution of his soul are com- 
 pletely sidetracked and forgotten. 
 
 There was a well-defined, poetic strain in his character which 
 manifested itself in his repeated attempts at writing poetry, 
 which never overshadowed his other interests but which, never- 
 theless, disclose his love of poetry and his frequent use and 
 quotation of it. His range of reading being at first limited, 
 he picked a few favorite poems and poets, and remained true 
 to them. The favorite poem of his youth was undoubtedly 
 Knox's poem Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud. 
 Colonel W. J. Anderson, among a great many others who have 
 referred to Lincoln's preference for this poem, tells the com- 
 plete story of Lincoln's love for this poem : 
 
 "When I was a boy of seventeen I had a music teacher, a 
 Mrs. Lois E. Hillis, who was a member of the Newhall Family, 
 a concert troupe, * * * One day * * * Mrs. Hillis took from 
 a cabinet in her office a faded blue paper. The paper was a 
 long sheet of the old fashioned legal cap, upon which was a copy 
 of the poem 'Oh Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud,' 
 and it was signed 'A. Lincoln.' * * * then she related the fol- 
 lowing * : 
 
 " ' It was early in' the fall of '49, when I was sixteen years of 
 age, that, with my father and mother and my two sisters, a 
 brother, and the gentleman who afterward became my husband, 
 
 989872 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 1 was travelling through portions of the State of Illinois giving 
 concerts. ( )ur troupe was well known then as The Newhall 
 Family. In those days our travelling was done almost entirely 
 by stage or private conveyance. There were no railroads in that 
 portion of Illinois, the old Eighth Circuit, and we were making 
 what was later called "one night stands" in thriving towns. 
 When we had been about a week in our circuit there appeared 
 at the hotel one evening, just before our concert, three men on 
 horseback, who turned out to be a congressman from that dis- 
 trict then making a canvass for a second term, the chairman of 
 his committee, whose name I do not remember, and a very 
 homely, ungainly looking man whether on horseback or on foot, 
 whose name was given as Lincoln. None of my family had 
 at that time ever heard of Mr. Lincoln, and so he was equally 
 a stranger to us with the others. As we were, in a way, public 
 characters, we introduced all around, and that evening — these 
 gentlemen having held their political meeting in the afternoon — 
 attended our concert in one of the local churches. For eight 
 days following that we traveled with this trio of political cam- 
 paigners, and as their meetings were always held in the after- 
 noon in order to give the farmers an opportunity to attend, the 
 three gentlemen attended our concerts, we giving them compli- 
 mentary tickets. 
 
 " 'We became, in a way, very well acquainted and on the 
 eighth day — or rather the eighth evening — after our concert the 
 chairman in charge of the campaign informed us that their route 
 the following day would diverge from ours and that they would 
 like very much to hear more than the ordinary amount of music, 
 such as we had been giving them for their entertainment at the 
 hotels in the evening, and my sisters, and myself particularly, 
 sang pretty near our full repertoire for them, they seemingly 
 being very much delighted. There was a small melodeon in that 
 hotel, a luxury we had not found in all of the stopping places. 
 Quite late in the evening, when there was a lapse in the musical 
 program, the congressional candidate turned to Mr. Lincoln and 
 said : "Now, Abe, you have been listening to these young women 
 
HIS FAVORITE POSMS AND POETS / 
 
 for more than a week, and I think it only fair that yon should 
 sing them some of your songs." Lincoln immediately pro- 
 tested that he never had sung a note in his life and wouldn't 
 begin then, but his two companions began to banter him, and 
 one said: "Why over on the Sangamon Abe has a great reputa- 
 tion as a singer. It is quite a common thing" over there to invite 
 him to farm auctions and have him start off the sale of stock 
 with a good song." 
 
 " 'Naturally we became very eager to have Mr. Lincoln sing. 
 My sisters and I, and in fact our whole troupe, had taken a great 
 liking to him. We had heard him speak a few times, but that 
 had not impressed us so much as something particularly pleasing 
 in the man's personality and his manner toward women. Mr. 
 Lincoln listened a while to our solicitations, and then in a very 
 embarrassed way he got up and said : "You fellows are trying 
 to make a fool of me, and I am going to bed." I was sitting at 
 the melodeon, and as he passed me I said to him : "Mr. Lincoln, 
 if you have any song that you can sing I know that I can play 
 the accompaniment for it so as to aid you. If you will just 
 tell me what it is, I can follow you even if I am not familiar 
 with it." He turned to me in a very embarrassed way and 
 said : 
 
 "Why, Miss Newhall, if it was to save my soul from hell 
 I couldn't imitate a note that you would touch on that. I never 
 sang in my life, and never was able to. Those fellows are just 
 simply liars." 
 
 ' 'Seeing that I was somewhat disappointed he said: "But I'll 
 tell you what I'll do for you. You girls have been so kind 
 singing for us, I'll repeat to you my favorite poem." Then, 
 stepping to the door which led from the parlor to the stairway, 
 and leaning his awkward form against the casing, for he seemed 
 almost too tall for the door frame, and half closing his eyes, 
 he repeated : 
 
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10 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ' 'When he had finished you may be sure there was no more 
 joking- or bantering. I know that for myself, I was so im- 
 pressed with the poem that I felt more like crying than talking; 
 but as he turned to go up stairs, I said: "Mr. Lincoln, who 
 wrote that?" He turned and came back to where I was sitting 
 and said: "Miss Newhall, I am ashamed to say I don't know, 
 but if you like it I will write it off for you before T go to bed 
 tonight and leave it for you on the table where you can get it 
 when you have breakfast." 
 
 " 'It was the intention of the campaigning party to leave 
 earlier than we had planned. I was sitting at breakfast, eating 
 by candle light, and I recall very distinctly I was eating pancakes 
 and was in the act of cutting one, holding it with my fork while 
 I used the knife, when I was conscious of some motion behind 
 me, and a great big hand took hold of my left hand, or rather 
 covering it on the table, and with his right hand around over 
 my other shoulder he laid down a piece of paper just in front 
 of my plate. Before I could realize who or what it was, Mr. 
 Lincoln moved toward the door, saying, ''Good-bye, my dear." 
 That was the last time I ever saw him.' " 
 
 "After the Ohio campaign," says Judge Samuel C. Parks, 
 "and during a lull in the political storm, Lincoln undertook to 
 enter the lecture field, but did not succeed very well, and after 
 trying it three times, gave it up. He never became what is 
 called a literary man. * * * But he always had a taste for 
 poetry. In his chrysalis life at New Salem his taste seemed 
 to be considerably for doggerel, and he was up to that time 
 the best reciter of that kind of verses that ever appeared on 
 the New Salem boards. He used to 'bring down the house' 
 by reciting an anonymous poem which settled by a compromise 
 the great question of how St. Patrick came to be born on the 
 
HIS FAVORITE POEMS AND POETS 
 
 11 
 
 17th of March instead of the 8th or 9th. This question, ac- 
 cording to tradition, had created great excitement in Ireland and 
 a fierce war of factions. A part of this poem reads as follows : 
 
 The first factional fight in old Ireland, they say, 
 
 Was all on account of St. Patrick's birthday. 
 
 It was somewhere about midnight, without any doubt, 
 
 And certain it is it made a great rout. 
 
 Some fought for the 8th, for the 9th some would die, 
 
 He who wouldn't see right would get a black eye. 
 
 At length these two factions so positive grew, 
 
 That each had a birthday, and Pat he had two, 
 
 Till Father Mulcahay, who showed them their sins, 
 
 Said none could have two birthdays except as twins. 
 
 "Now, boys, don't be fighting for the 8 or the 9, 
 
 Don't quarrel so always, now why not combine? 
 
 Combine eight with nine — that is the mark, 
 
 Let that be the birthday." "Amen !" said the clerk. 
 
 So they all got blind drunk, which completed their bliss, 
 
 And they've kept up the practice from that day to this.' 
 
 "But this boyish taste for doggerel passed away and was suc- 
 ceeded by a higher one for Shakespeare and Burns ; the latter 
 he was accustomed to carry around with him on the circuit, 
 and committed much of it to memory. And no wonder. The 
 man who said his heart was buried in the grave of his first love, 
 Ann Rutledge, would naturally love the poet who sang with 
 such mournful beauty over the grave of Highland Mary. 
 
 "The man who hated slavery and sympathized with the op- 
 pressed and weary-laden everywhere would feel in his inmost 
 heart every verse of that matchless poem, 'Man was made to 
 mourn.' 
 
 "The great central question of the poem has been asked in 
 some form by oppressed humanity for thousands of years. It 
 
\2 ABRAHAM 1,1 N COL, N 
 
 was the question live thousand years ago upon the hanks of the 
 Nile by the hundreds of thousands of slaves who built the 
 Pyramids at the command of Egyptian tyrants. It was the 
 question upon the shores of the Tigris and Euphrates by the 
 miserable victims of unrequited toil, who erected those vast 
 monuments of despotism in Ninevah and Babylon. It was the 
 question of the poor and ignorant victims of the oppression and 
 cruelties of the robber barons and the petty despots of the 
 Middle Ages. That question has been asked for centuries by 
 millions of the subjects of the great despotisms of modern 
 Europe. It was asked by the black man in America during 
 his three hundred years of bondage, and it is now being asked 
 all over the civilized world by men of all colors and all races 
 who are suffering from poverty and want, from political des- 
 potism, from financial oppression, and from corporate greed. 
 The question as put by the unrivaled minstrel of Scotland is 
 the cry of oppressed and downtrodden humanity from the dawn 
 of history to the present hour. 
 
 Tf I'm designed yon lordling's slave, 
 
 By Nature's law designed, 
 Why was an independent wish 
 
 E'er planted in my mind ? 
 
 If not, why am I subject to 
 
 His cruelty and scorn ? 
 And why has man the will and power 
 
 To make his brother mourn ?' 
 
 ''No public man ever lived who was better fitted to under- 
 stand and to answer this question than Abraham Lincoln. None 
 
HIS FAVORITE POliMS AND POSTS 13 
 
 of the great rulers of the world believed more entirely in the 
 equal rights of our common humanity as a matter of principle, 
 or were more devoted to their vindication in practice. He has 
 been justly called the great commoner of the world, and when 
 the fullness of time had come and when he could do so con- 
 stitutionally as a necessary war measure, he answered one 
 phase of the great question by emancipating nearly 4,000,000 
 slaves." 
 
 During one of the voyages he took with Captain Dahlgren, 
 his diary relates — "Sometimes on these trips the President 
 would read aloud to the assembled officers and officials some 
 favorite piece of literature." He is said to have read with great 
 dramatic power, and with much pathos or humor, according to 
 the character of the selection. His choice on one occasion 
 was Halleck's spirited lyric Marco Bozzaris, the closing lines 
 of which have been thought prophetic of Lincoln's own career 
 and fate : 
 
 "For thou are Freedom's now, and Fame's ; 
 One of the few, the immortal names, 
 That were not born to die." 
 
 It is indeed fortunate that the little volume of Halleck's poems 
 has been preserved by the Dahlgren family to this day. Dahl- 
 gren wrote the statement on the little volume, which seems to 
 indicate that Lincoln brought it with him and left it in the 
 cabin after leaving for Washington. But let the Captain's in- 
 scription in the little book tell its own story : 
 
14 
 
 ABRAHAM UNCOLN 
 
 In between important events and Cabinet meetings he 
 would read and re-read the leading plays of Shakespeare and 
 many of the poems by Robert Burns. Ocassionally, he would 
 pick up a poem, the reading and publishing of which he thought 
 would aid the Union cause by rousing the drooping spirits of 
 his people. Hence, he would advocate the distribution and the 
 wide circulation of Thomas Buchanan Read's poem The Oath, 
 
HIS FAVORITE POEMS AND POETS 15 
 
 or The Swear, as he whimsically called it, and would ask for its 
 reading at public recitals. He evidently appreciated the value 
 and force of poetry and song. Hence his joy at recapturing 
 Dixie : ''It is now our song," he says in the last days of his 
 life, as he summons the bandmaster to play it. 
 
 In the comparatively small number of books credited to his 
 library, were a good many volumes of poetry to which he 
 would turn in his few moments of leisure. He unquestionably 
 loved Burns. There is a well-defined tradition that he deliv- 
 ered an address at a Burns anniversary in Washington. While 
 a real search has hitherto failed to disclose the whereabouts 
 of that address, we are fortunate in finding a toast to Burns 
 which Lincoln prepared and sent to the particular celebration, 
 which he was unable to attend. Here it is : 
 
 "I can not frame a toast to Burns ; I can say nothing 
 
 worthy of his generous heart and transcendent genius. 
 
 A. Lincoln.'' 
 Beneath was written the following : 
 
 "I can not frame a toast to Burns ; I can say nothing 
 
 worthy of his generous heart and transcending genius ; 
 
 thinking of what he has said I can not say anything which 
 
 seems worth saying. 
 
 A. Lincoln." 
 On one occasion in Springfield, he did attend a Burns 
 celebration, but unfortunately Lincoln's oration on Burns came 
 at the end of a lengthy programme, and the newspaper reports 
 the next morning, which were being printed before the conclu- 
 sion of the celebration, simply refer to the fact that Lincoln 
 delivered the oration. "The regular toasts," says the Illinois 
 State Journal of the 27th of January, 1859, "were responded 
 to in order by Messrs. Lincoln, Linder, Matheny, Blaisdell and 
 others. * * * We expected to give the toasts this morning, 
 but they were crowded out, together with the reports of several 
 of the speeches." No quotation from it, no report of any part 
 of it, has been found to this day. It probably perished in the 
 final housecleaning with a mass of other papers and letters, 
 in the few weeks before the family left for Washington. 
 
16 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 "As for Burns," says Ariadne Gilbert, "he and Lincoln 
 were mates in a great many ways: one born in a clay hut, the 
 other in a log-cabin ; one schooled in the Scotch hills, the other 
 in the forest and the prairies — those schools of trees, and star- 
 light, and wide spaces, teaching that men are brothers to the 
 creatures of the grass. Surely Lincoln and Burns were kin- 
 dred spirits in their tenderness, though one was so much 
 stronger than the other in moral muscle. There was the 
 Scotch plowman, sorry to uproot the mountain daisy and 
 scatter the fieldmouse's nest ; sorry to scare the water-fowl from 
 the dimpling Loch ; heart-wounded when he saw the wounded 
 hare ; and waking at night in the whirling snowstorm, thinking 
 of the 'ourie cattle and silly sheep,' and the 'wee, helpless,' 
 cowering birds. There was the Illinois woodsman with his 
 hundreds of unrecorded sympathies, for he left no poems to 
 tell them. No one will ever know how often he scorned a 
 chance to rob a nest or bring down with his gun a feathered 
 mate, or how often, instead of the thought of cruelty, there 
 fluttered over his rough face that look of tender understanding 
 which always came when wood-creatures or men were at his 
 mercy. The boy Lincoln had argued, 'An ant's life is as sweet 
 to it as ours to us,' and, as his first incensed boy-speeches had 
 been against cruelty to animals, now, as a man, he would stop 
 to hunt up a nest from which two young birds had fallen be- 
 cause he could not have slept otherwise ; or pull a pig out of 
 the mud 'to take the pain out of his own mind.' These stories 
 are more important than they seem, because they point to Lin- 
 coln's greatest life-work — the setting at liberty those that were 
 bound. Had the New Salem grocer never felt, as he did, the 
 little pains of little things, it is hardly believable that he would 
 have shared the great pain with that immensity of suffering." 
 
 One of the outstanding favorite poems of his mature years 
 was The Last Leaf, by Oliver Wendell Holmes. With Lin- 
 coln, to like a poem was to memorize it, recite it, use it, quote 
 it, on repeated occasions. He discussed it with many of his 
 intimates, and particularly with Henry C. Whitney, who wrote 
 to Holmes about it, the latter replying as follows : 
 
HIS FAVORITE) POEMS AND POETS 17 
 
 
 
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18 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 
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HIS FAVORITE POSMS AND POSTS 19 
 
 " * * * ; and one November day," says Noah 
 Brooks, "we were driving out to the Soldiers' Home, near 
 Washington, when the aspect of the scene recalled the lines 
 to his mind. He slowly and with excellent judgment re- 
 cited the whole poem. Enlarging upon the pathos, wit, 
 and humor of Holmes, I found that the President had 
 never seen a copy of the genial doctor's works, so far as 
 he could remember, although he was not certain that he 
 had not. I offered to lend him my copy of the poems, a 
 little blue-and-gold book; and the next time I went to the 
 White House I took it with me. About a week after leav- 
 ing the book with the President, I called at the house one 
 evening, and, finding him alone, we settled down for a 
 quiet chat. He took from a drawer in his table the blue- 
 and-gold Holmes, and went over the book with much gusto, 
 reading or reciting several poems that had struck his fancy. 
 He expressed his surprise at finding that some of the verses 
 which he admired most had been drifting about in the 
 newspapers without the name of the author attached to 
 them ; and it was in this way he said, that he had found 
 'The Last Leaf,' although he did know that Dr. Holmes 
 was the author. Finally he said that he liked 'Lexington' 
 as well as anything in the book, 'The Last Leaf alone ex- 
 cepted, and he began to read the poem ; but when he came 
 to the stanza beginning 
 
 'Green be the graves where her martyrs are lying ! 
 Shroudless and tombless they sunk to their rest, — ' 
 
 his voice faltered, and he gave me the book with the whis- 
 pered request, 'You read it ; I can't.' Months afterward, 
 when several ladies were in the Red Parlor one evening, 
 calling upon Mrs. Lincoln, he recited that poem without 
 missing a word, so far as I could remember it. And yet 
 I do not believe that he ever saw the text of 'Lexington' 
 except during the few busy days when he had my book." 
 
 ' * * * At Cincinnati," says T. C. Evans, "when the 
 
20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ceremonies, handshakings, and speech-makings were at last 
 done, and he had reached the privacy of his rooms, he repeated 
 to a few friends who were there the lines from Henry IV : 
 
 'Come, let ns sit upon the ground, 
 
 And tell strange stories of the death of kings ; 
 
 ^e i)c :J: %. >f: % s|s 
 
 They were all murdered,' 
 saying" that they had been murmuring in his mind all day." 
 
 This, too, was the age of the album, which a great many, 
 young and old, were in the habit of having- in readiness at all 
 times, for some toast or some sentiment, or at least for a signa- 
 ture of all the prominent people who came into their lives, to 
 inscribe. Those who were given to poetry would attempt their 
 hand at a poetical sentiment ; others would be satisfied with a 
 pious wish. Quite a number of these came from Lincoln's pen, 
 and here is one to Linnie : 
 
 "To 'Linnie:' 
 
 A sweet plaintive song- did I hear 
 And I fancied that she was the singer. 
 May emotions as pure as that song set astir 
 Be the wont that the future shall bring her. 
 
 A. Lincoln." 
 
 While in Henry C. Whitney's law office, in Urbana, he 
 took a copy of Byron from the shelves and read aloud from 
 the third Canto of Childe Harold, from the 34th verse: "There 
 is a very life in our despair," etc., to and including the 45th 
 verse : 
 
 "He who ascends to mountain tops shall find 
 Those loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow ; 
 He who surpasses or subdues mankind 
 Must look down on the hate of those below ; 
 Though high above, the sun of glory glow, 
 And far beneath, the earth and ocean spread, 
 
HIS FAVORITE POEMS AND POETS 21 
 
 Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow 
 
 Contending tempests on his naked head, 
 
 And thus reward the toils which to those summits lead." 
 
 "This poetry," says Whitney, "was very familiar to him 
 evidently ; he looked specifically for, and found it with no hes- 
 itation, and read it with a fluency that indicated that he had 
 read it oftentimes before." Is there any doubt that he saw 
 himself in these stanzas, his own great efforts, which were met 
 with questionings, with hostility, and ultimately with the taking 
 of his life "and thus reward the toils which to those summits 
 lead." 
 
 On one occasion the conversation turned on drafting and 
 on those who dodged the draft. "By the way," Mr. Lincoln 
 asked, "do you remember the epitaph on Miser Dodge?" "No," 
 was the answer, "not by that name, unless this was intended 
 for him : 
 
 'Here lies old Thirty-Three and a Third per cent, 
 The more he got the more he lent, 
 The more he lent the more he craved. 
 Good Lord ! can such a man be saved ?" 
 
 "Pretty good!" exclaimed the President, "but I know a 
 better, and you can get it chiselled on the draft-dodgers' 
 tombs : 
 
 'Here lies old Dodge, who dodged all good, 
 
 And never dodged an evil ; 
 And after dodging all he could, 
 
 He could not dodffe the Devil.' " 
 
 General James Wadsworth of New York was shot and 
 killed while on horseback leading his brigade, sword in hand, 
 
22 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 in the bloodiest battle of the Wilderness. Mr. Lincoln recalled 
 the fact that after the death of General Wadsworth there was 
 found Mr. Lincoln's own letter, stained with the dead soldier's 
 blood, in which the J 'resident had written these words: "We 
 have clothed the black soldier in the uniform of the United 
 States. We have made him a soldier. He has fought for his 
 right to be a citizen. He has won it with his blood. It cannot 
 be taken away from him." And, taking from his pocket a poem 
 of a forgotten English writer, William North by name, he read 
 these lines as a tribute to General James Wadsworth: 
 
 "Time was when he who won his spurs of gold 
 From royal hands must woo the knightly state. 
 
 The knell of old formalities is tolled, 
 
 And the world's knights are now self -consecrate.'' 
 
 The doors of the Temple of Justice were always open to 
 the eyes and mind of Abraham Lincoln. To him, Justice was 
 neither one-eyed nor blind nor blindfolded. 
 
 Your Mission, a hymn by Ellen Huntington Gates, was 
 another great favorite — and it was frequently quoted and used 
 by Lincoln. 
 
 YOUR MISSION 
 
 If you cannot on the ocean 
 
 Sail among the swiftest fleet, 
 Rocking on the highest billow, 
 
 Laughing at the storms you meet, 
 You can stand among the sailors, 
 
 Anchored yet within the bay, 
 You can lend a hand to help them, 
 
 As they launch their boats away. 
 
 If you are too weak to journey 
 Up the mountain, steep and high, 
 
 You can stand within the valley, 
 Where the multitudes go by. 
 
 You can chant in happy measure, 
 
HIS FAVORITE POEMS AND POETS 23 
 
 As they slowly pass along; 
 Though they may forget the singer, 
 They will not forget the song. 
 
 If you cannot, in the harvest, 
 
 Gather up the richest sheaves, 
 Many a grain both ripe and golden, 
 
 Oft the careless reaper leaves — 
 Go and glean among the briars 
 
 Growing rank against the wall, 
 For it may be that their shadow 
 
 Hides the heaviest wheat of all. 
 
 If you have not gold and silver 
 
 Ever ready to command ; 
 If you cannot toward the needy 
 
 Reach an ever open hand ; 
 You can visit the afflicted, 
 
 O'er the erring you can weep, 
 With the Saviour's true disciples, 
 
 You a patient watch may keep. 
 
 If you cannot in the conflict 
 
 Prove yourself a soldier true, 
 If where fire and smoke are thickest, 
 
 There's no work for you to do. 
 When the battlefield is silent, 
 
 You can go with careful tread, 
 You can bear away the wounded, 
 
 You can cover up the dead. 
 
 Do not, then, stand idly waiting 
 
 For some greater work to do ; 
 Fortune is a lazy goddess, 
 
 She will never come to you. 
 Go and toil in any vineyard, 
 
 Do not fear to do or dare, 
 If you want a field of labor, 
 
 You can find it anywhere. 
 
24 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 It was for this poem that Lincoln called a second time at 
 a meeting held in the hall of the House of Representatives, 
 held on January 29, 1865, over which Secretary William H. 
 
 HALE OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 j? **X 
 
 U, 8. CHRISTIAN COMMISSION, * 
 
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 Seward presided. He wrote on the hack of the program — 
 "Near the close let us have 'Your Mission' repeated by Mr. 
 Phillips. Don't say I called for it. Lincoln." 
 
HIS FAVORITE POEMS AND POETS 
 
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26 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 Carl Sandburg quotes part of a poem which Lincoln heard 
 and subsequently read and quoted frequently. Part of it is 
 as follows : 
 
 "Tell me, ye winged winds 
 That round my pathway roar, 
 Do ye not know some spot 
 Where mortals weep no more? 
 Some lone and pleasant vale, 
 Some valley in the west, 
 Where, free from toil and pain, 
 The weary soul may rest? 
 The loud wind dwindled to a whisper low, 
 And sighed for pity as it answered, No." 
 
 Here, again, the man of solitude, the melancholy, gloomy 
 Lincoln, seeks for refuge from the ills and tribulations with 
 which he is forever assailed. 
 
 In procuring The Oath, or rather The Swear (as Lincoln 
 called it) by Thomas Buchanan Read, we find almost the same 
 situation as in the case of Our Mission. 
 
 "So many stories of doubtful origin have been given cir- 
 culation," says Charles Bromback, "that it is refreshing to relate 
 the facts of a now little known poem, the powerful influence of 
 which was probably not equaled by any other composition of a 
 like nature written during the Civil War. The author of the 
 poem was Thomas Buchanan Read, who was also the author of 
 'Sheridan's Ride.' The immense popularity of that dashing 
 and timely poem cannot be denied ; but, as productive propa- 
 ganda, Read's less known poem — The Oath was of greater im- 
 portance. 
 
 "During the greater portion of the year 1864, the appalling 
 results of the war had so dejected the people of the North. 
 Events, however, were in the making that were to give Lincoln 
 his overwhelming victory in November: — Sherman's dispatch 
 from Atlanta on the 3rd of September, saying — 'Atlanta is 
 
his favorite: pokms and poets 27 
 
 ours and fairly won ;' and Sheridan's dispatch of the 19th of 
 September from the valley, saying — 'We have just sent them 
 (the enemy) whirling through Winchester, and we are after 
 them to-morrow.' 
 
 Many months before, Thomas Buchanan Read had written an- 
 other war poem published in the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, 
 on January 29th, 1863. The title of the poem was The Oath, 
 and, as first printed had but three verses, thus : 
 
 s/< <&« s$t 
 
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 y*. A<« H\x^ f A^w 4r*KJt **?*.tt yc &fc x £JU. 
 
>8 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 ********* 
 
 "Abraham Lincoln recognized in Read's poem The Oath, 
 a potent agency for re-kindling the almost extinguished flames 
 of patriotism. There can be no doubt of the effect it had on 
 the younger men who had not thought of donning the uniform 
 of freedom. 
 
 S»A< 
 
 /jk*^t /»%<Mf ***-«** I 
 
 
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 "Early in 1863, James E. Murdoch, an elocutionist and 
 lecturer, was in Washington to give readings from various 
 authors. Lincoln frequently attended these readings which 
 were held in the Senate chamber, and was one of the most en- 
 thusiastic listeners, particularly when some patriotic phrase 
 seemed to drive its lesson home and clinch it. Selections from 
 
his favorite; poems and poets 29 
 
 Read's longer poems were recited and the concert closed with 
 a recital of the stirring lines from The Oath, Lincoln remain- 
 ing among the last to strenuously applaud the noble words that 
 urged the tardy to the defense of the homeland. 
 
 "On another occasion, Mr. Lincoln again attended the Sen- 
 
 
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 ate Chamber to hear Mr. Murdoch in a program of different 
 selections. The President displayed considerable disappoint- 
 ment when the closing poem of the previous entertainment was 
 omitted, but was quick to act, immediately sending up to Mr. 
 Murdoch a request for the recitation of "The Swear!" Mur- 
 
30 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 doch, of course, recognized in Mr. Lincoln's request, Buchanan 
 Read's poem "The Oath," but was compelled to return an 
 adverse message because he had not committed the lines to 
 memory, and was, at the time, without a copy of the wanted 
 verses. 'Oh, that is easily remedied,' said the President, 'for I 
 have "The Swear" in my pocket,' and, as he was talking 
 his bony fingers searched the innermost recesses of his pockets, 
 and with awkward jerk, but with a look of triumph on his 
 kindly face, he produced the coveted papers and sent them up 
 to the speaker by Hannibal Hamlin — the Vice-President — him- 
 self ! 
 
 "The treasured poem that Mr. Lincoln drew from his 
 pocket had but three stanzas, but, at the time, the poem was 
 complete as written by Thomas Buchanan Read. While there 
 is no available record on this point, the use of a single name 
 in the fourth stanza, saves all argument: 
 
HIS FAVORITE POEMS AND POETS 31 
 
 /■v 
 
 fu >.<>-. -/- . ^ '/ *M «*,< ,,,>/. //.. fcl^I < 
 
 *,(.-< „ ,., ^ X.. ,..,,,; h Y£ t # t ( 
 
 
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 "Historically, it is an unquestionable record (the last 
 stanza) of the state of mind of the loyal inhabitants of the Ohio 
 Valley during the terrible Morgan raids. The name McCook 
 furnishes the simple clue. And, as Major Daniel McCook did 
 not fall a victim to the harassing hordes of the intrepid John 
 Hunt Morgan until the latter part of Tuly, 1863, the fourth 
 
32 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 stanza, obviously, could not have been written for a year or 
 more after the composition of the three first stanzas as heard 
 by Lincoln." 
 
 Tt appears that he had favorite plays which he preferred to 
 others of Shakespeare, particularly Hamlet and Macbeth. "For 
 am I not a man of infinite jest?" he says to a delegation which 
 invites him to a Shakespeare celebration by a literary society. 
 
 "I went with him to the Soldiers' Home, and he read 
 Shakespeare to me — the end of 'Henry V.' and the beginning 
 of 'Richard III.' — till my heavy eyelids caught his considerate 
 notice and he sent me to bed," says one of his secretaries. 
 "Lincoln 'read Shakespeare more than all other writers to- 
 gether,' and he went occasionally to the theatre. His favorite 
 plays were 'Hamlet,' 'Macbeth,' and the histories, especially 
 'Richard II."' 
 
 He was fond of the theatre and came to know Hackett, who 
 appeared in Washington on a number of occasions during Lin- 
 coln's stay in the White House. Perhaps the extent to which 
 Lincoln was in the habit of reading and quoting from Shake- 
 speare is best evidenced by a letter which he wrote to James H. 
 Hackett on Augxist 17, 1863, as follows: 
 
 "My Dear Sir: 
 
 "Months ago I should have acknowledged the receipt 
 of your book and accompaning kind note ; and I now have 
 to beg your pardon for not having done so. 
 
 "For one of my age I have seen very little of the drama. 
 The first presentation of Falstaff I ever saw was yours 
 here, last winter or spring. Perhaps the best compliment 
 I can pay is to say, as I truly can, I am very anxious to 
 see it again. Some of Shakespeare's plays I have never 
 read ; while others I have gone over perhaps as frequently 
 as any professional reader. Among the latter are 'Lear', 
 'Richard IIP, 'Henry VIP, 'Hamlet', and especially 'Mac- 
 beth'. I think nothing equals 'Macbeth'. It is wonderful. 
 
 "Unlike you gentlemen of the profession, I think the 
 soliloquy in 'Hamlet' commencing 'Oh, my offense is rank', 
 
HIS FAVORITE PO£MS AND POKTS 33 
 
 surpasses that commencing 'To be or not to be'. But par- 
 don this small attempt at criticism. I should like to hear 
 you pronounce the opening speech of 'Richard III'. Will 
 you not soon visit Washington again? If you do, please 
 call and let me have your personal acquaintance. 
 
 "Yours truly, 
 
 "A. Lincoln. " 
 
 and on a later date : — November 2, 1863, to Mr. James H. 
 Hackett as follows : 
 "(Private) 
 "My dear Sir : 
 
 "My note to you I certainly did not expect to see in 
 print : yet I have not been much shocked by the newspaper 
 comments upon it. Those comments constitute a fair 
 specimen of what has occurred to me through life. I have 
 endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice ; and 
 have received a great deal of kindness, not quite free from 
 ridicule. I am used to it. 
 
 "Yours truly, 
 
 "A. Lincoln." 
 
 It is also a well known fact that the new National Theatre, 
 afterwards Grover's Theatre, was opened with a performance 
 of Othello. Lincoln attended on October 6, 1863. In the cast 
 were: E. L. Davenport, Othello; J. W. Wallack, Iago ; Mrs. 
 Farren, Emelia. 
 
 * * * It is related of him," says Noah Brooks, ''that, 
 spending a few days at Fortress Monroe, he took up a volume 
 of Shakspere and read aloud to General Wool's aid, who 
 chanced to be near him, several passages from 'Hamlet' and 
 'Macbeth;' then, after reading from the third act of 'King 
 John,' he closed the book and recalled the lament of Constance 
 for her boy, beginning : 
 
 'And, father cardinal, I have heard you say 
 
 That we shall see and know our friends in heaven : 
 
 If that be true, I shall see my boy again.' 
 
34 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 "These words, he said, with deep emotion, reminded him 
 of hours when he seemed to be holding communion with his 
 lost boy, Willie, yet knowing, the while, that this was only 
 a vision. Consider the pathos of this incident. The worn and 
 grief -burdened President was waiting for the results of a 
 movement against Norfolk, then in possession of the enemy; 
 and it was thus he beguiled the heavy hours. 
 
 "Lincoln seldom quoted poetry in his letters or speeches, 
 although in conversation he often made an allusion to some- 
 thing which he had read, always with the air of one who 
 deprecated the imputation that he might be advertising his 
 erudition. Occasionally, as in his farewell speech to his neigh- 
 bors and friends in Springfield, he employed a commonplace 
 quotation, with due credit to the unknown author. In that 
 address he said, 'Let us believe, as some poet has expressed 
 it, "Behind the cloud the sun is still shining." In a speech 
 in Congress, on so unpromising a theme as internal improve- 
 ments, then one of the issues of the time, he quoted Robert 
 Herrick's lines : 
 
 'Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt ; 
 Nothing's so hard but search will find it out.' 
 
 "Another example occurs in an address made to a delega- 
 tion of colored men who had waited on him to obtain an ex- 
 pression of opinion on the subject of colonization. The Presi- 
 dent spoke at great length, and concluded by saying that he 
 hoped that his visiters would consider the matter seriously, 
 not for themselves alone, nor for the present generation, but 
 for the good of mankind, and he added : 
 
 'From age to age descend the lay 
 
 To millions yet to be, 
 Till far its echoes roll away 
 
 Into eternity.' 
 
 "Amid all his labors, Lincoln found time to read the news- 
 papers, or, as he sometimes expressed it, 'to* skirmish' with 
 them. From their ephemeral pages he rescued many a choice 
 
his favorite: poems and posts 35 
 
 bit of verse, which he carried with him until he was quite 
 familiar with it. I am bound to say that some of these waifs 
 would not receive the hospitality of a severe literary critic ; 
 but it was noticeable that they were almost invariably referable 
 to his tender sympathy with humanity, its hopes and its sor- 
 rows. I recall one of these extracts, which he took out of 
 his pocket one afternoon, as we were riding- out to the Soldier's 
 Home. It began : 
 
 'A weaver sat at his loom 
 
 Flinging his shuttle fast, 
 And a thread that should wear till the hour of doom 
 
 Was added at every cast.' 
 
 The idea was that men weave in their own lives the garment 
 which they must wear in the world to come. I do* not know 
 who wrote the verses ; but the opening lines were fixed in my 
 mind by their frequent repetition by the President, who seemed 
 to be strongly impressed by them. During the evening, he 
 murmured them to himself, once or twice, as if in a soliloquy. 
 "I think it was early in the war that some public speaker 
 sent Lincoln a newspaper report of a speech delivered in New 
 York. The President, apparently, did not pay much attention 
 to the speech, but a few lines of verse at the close caught his 
 eye. These were the closing stanzas of Longfellow's 'Building 
 of the Ship,' beginning with : 
 
 'Thou too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 
 
 Sail on, O Union, strong and great!' 
 
 To my surprise, he seemed to have read the lines for the first 
 time. Knowing the whole poem as one of my early exercises 
 in recitation, I began, at his request, with the description of 
 the launching of the ship, and repeated it to the end. As he 
 listened to the last lines : 
 
 'Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
 Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,' etc., 
 
 his eyes filled with tears, and his cheeks were wet. He did 
 not speak for some minutes, but finally said, with simplicity : 
 
36 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 'It is a wonderful gift to be able to stir men like that.' It is 
 quite possible that he had read the poem long before the war 
 for the Union gave to the closing portion that depth of meaning 
 which it now holds for us." 
 
 ''Latterly Mr. Lincoln's reading was with the humorous 
 writers. He liked to repeat from memory whole chapters from 
 these books ; and on such occasions he always preserved his 
 own gravity though his auditors might be convulsed with 
 laughter. He said that he had a dread of people who could 
 not appreciate the fun of such things; and he once instanced 
 a member of his own Cabinet, of whom he quoted the saying 
 of Sydney Smith, 'that it required a surgical operation to get 
 a joke into his head.' The light trifles spoken of diverted his 
 mind, or, as he said of his theatre-going, gave him refuge 
 from himself and his weariness. But he also was a lover of 
 many philosophical books, and particularly liked Butler's 
 Analogy of Religion, Stuart Mill on Liberty, and he always 
 hoped to get at President Edwards on the Will. These ponder- 
 ous writers found a queer companionship in the chronicler of 
 the Mackerel Brigade, Parson Nasby. and Private Miles 
 O'Reilly. The Bible was a very familiar study with the Presi- 
 dent, whole chapters of Isaiah, the New Testament, and the 
 Psalms being fixed in his memory, and he would sometimes 
 correct a misquotation of Scripture, giving generally the chap- 
 ter and verse where it could be found. He liked the Old 
 Testament best, and dwelt on the simple beauty of the his- 
 torical books. Once, speaking of his own age and strength, 
 he quoted with admiration that passage, 'His eye was not dim, 
 nor his natural forces abated.' I do not know that he thought 
 then how, like that Moses of old, he was to stand on Pisgah 
 and see a peaceful land which he was not to enter. 
 
 "Of the poets *the President appeared to prefer Hood and 
 Holmes, the mixture and pathos in their writings being attrac- 
 tive to him beyond anything else which he read. Of the former 
 author he liked best the last part of 'Miss Kilmansegg and her 
 Golden Leg,' 'Faithless Sally Brown,' and one or two others 
 not generally so popular as those which are called Hood's 
 
HIS FAVORITE) POKMS AND POETS 
 
 37 
 
 best poems. In addition to 'The Last Leaf,' Holmes' 'Septem- 
 ber Gale,' 'Chambered Nautilus,' and 'Ballad of an Oyster- 
 man' were among his very few favorite poems. Longfellow's 
 'Psalm of Life' and 'Birds of Killing-worth' were the only pro- 
 ductions of that author he ever mentioned with praise, the latter 
 of which he picked up somewhere in a newspaper, cut out, and 
 carried in his vest pocket until it was committed to memory. 
 James Russell Lowell he only knew as 'Hosea Biglow,' every- 
 one of whose effusions he knew. He sometimes repeated, word 
 for word, the whole of 'John P. Robinson, he,' giving the un- 
 ceasing refrain with great unction and enjoyment. He once 
 said that originality and daring impudence were sublime in 
 this stanza of Lowell's : 
 
 'Ef you take a sword and dror it, 
 
 An' stick a feller creetur thru, 
 Gov'ment hain't to answer for it, 
 
 God'll send the bill to you.' 
 
 "To President Lincoln poetry was the fairest side of truth. 
 He was, withal, a philosopher, and one of his favorite pas- 
 sages, which he often repeated, was from Gibbon's 'Philo- 
 sophical Reflections :' 'A being of the nature of man, endowed 
 with the same faculties, but with a larger measure of existence, 
 would cast down a smile of pity and contempt on the crimes 
 and follies of human ambition, so eager in a narrow space to 
 grasp at a precarious and short-lived enjoyment. It is thus 
 that the experience of history exalts and enlarges the horizon 
 of our intellectual view. In a composition of some days, in a 
 perusal of some hours, six hundred years have rolled away, 
 and the duration of a life or reign is contracted to a fleeting 
 moment. The grave is ever beside the throne: the success of 
 a criminal is almost instantly followed by the loss of his prize, 
 and our immortal reason survives and disdains the sixty 
 phantoms of kings who have passed before our eyes and faintly 
 dwell upon our remembrance.' " 
 
 James E. Murdoch of Cincinnati, an actor of repute, whose 
 recitals Lincoln frequently attended, after reciting a number 
 
38 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 of poems to Lincoln, including the Lord's prayer, received from 
 
 Nicolay the following note and enclosure : 
 
 "My dear Sir : The President directs me to send you 
 the enclosed little poem and to request that if entirely con- 
 venient you will please to read it at the Senate Chamber 
 this evening." 
 
 And the printed enclosure reads thusly : 
 
 "The following patriotic lines were written by one of 
 the most distinguished statesmen of the United States in 
 answer to a lady's inquiry whether he was for peace." 
 
 The following is the last of eight stanzas : 
 "Am I for Peace? Yes! 
 For the peace which rings out from the 
 cannon's throat, 
 And the suasion of shot and shell, 
 Till rebellion's spirit is trampled down 
 To the depths of its kindred hell." 
 
 How unfair and unfounded the accepted notion that 
 Lincoln was a man who read but few books and quoted but 
 one or two poems. He assimilated practically every good poem 
 he read, and was acquainted with the leading poets and their 
 works of his own day and with the writings of the Victorian 
 poets as well. He knew Burns and Byron and Hood, as he 
 knew Poe and Longfellow and Whittier. He read as did any 
 other cultured man of his day. And his was the day of quoting 
 the best in poetry, ancient and modern. However, Lincoln 
 specialized more or less in his reading, and he certainly knew 
 Shakespeare and Burns as few of his contemporaries knew these 
 two great English poets. As to the other poets — through what- 
 ever channels they reached him, whether through newspapers 
 or magazines — when he read a poem and it had an appeal for 
 him, he read it till he remembered it and could quote it whole 
 or in part, for all time thereafter. In view of his catholic 
 taste for poetry, and in view of his many quotations, how it 
 is still maintained that he read little or nothing beside from the 
 
HIS FAVORITE POEMS AND POETS 39 
 
 few books which all concede he read, is one of the enigmas 
 which practically none of Lincoln's biographers has attempted 
 to explain. 
 
 In view of the President's many weird dreams and seeing 
 premonitions it is not strange that The Dream, by Lord Byron, 
 was among his favorite poems. To Ward Lamon he often 
 repeated : 
 
 "Sleep hath its own world, 
 A boundary between the things misnamed 
 Death and existence : Sleep hath its own world 
 And a wide realm of wild reality. 
 And dreams in their development have breath, 
 And tears and tortures, and the touch of joy; 
 They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, 
 They take a weight from off our waking toils, 
 They do divide our being." 
 
 A Philadelphia publisher sent him a complimentary copy 
 of an English translation of Schiller's poems in 1862. It must 
 have been one of the books he read, and Mrs. Lincoln pre- 
 sented it, after his death, to J. W. Forney, a friend of the 
 Lincoln family. 
 
 One cannot help noticing the element of poetry in some 
 of his letters and public papers. He wrote some poetry earlier 
 in life, and when he assures his friend, William Johnston, that 
 he was not the author of Knox's poem, he concludes by prom- 
 ising to send Johnston a part of a poem he did write. 
 
 Later he again wrote Johnston : 
 
 '"'Friend Johnston : You remember when I wrote you 
 from Tremont last spring, sending you a little canto of 
 what I called poetry, I promised to bore you with another 
 sometime. I now fulfill the promise. The subject of the 
 present one is an insane man ; his name is Matthew Gentry. 
 He is three years older than I, and when we were boys we 
 went to school together. He was rather a bright lad, and 
 the son of the rich man of a very poor neighborhood. At 
 the age of nineteen he unaccountably became furiously 
 
40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 mad, from which condition he gradually settled down into 
 harmless insanity. When, as 1 told you in my other letter, 
 I visited my old home in the fall of bS44, I found him 
 still lingering in this wretched condition. In my poetizing 
 mood, I could not forget the impression his case made upon 
 me. Here is the result : 
 
 But here's an ohject more of dread 
 
 Than aught the grave contains — 
 A human form with reason fled, 
 
 While wretched life remains. 
 
 When terror spread, and neighbors ran 
 
 Your dangerous strength to bind, 
 And soon, a howling, crazy man, 
 
 Your limbs were fast confined : 
 
 How then you strove and shrieked aloud, 
 
 Your bones and sinews bared ; 
 And fiendish on the gazing crowd 
 
 With burning eyeballs glared ; 
 
 And begged and swore, and wept and prayed, 
 
 With maniac laughter joined! 
 How fearful were these signs displayed 
 
 By pangs that killed the mind ! 
 
 And when at length the drear and long- 
 Time soothe thy fiercer woes, 
 
 How plaintively thy mournful song 
 Upon the still night rose ! 
 
 I've heard it oft as if I dreamed, 
 
 Far distant, sweet and lone, 
 The funeral dirge it ever seemed 
 
 Of reason dead and gone. 
 
 To drink its strains I've stole away, 
 
 All stealthily and still, 
 Ere yet the rising god of day 
 
 Had streaked the eastern hill. 
 
HIS FAVORITE PO£MS AND POETS 41 
 
 Air held her breath; trees with the spell 
 
 Seemed sorrowing angels round, 
 Whose swelling tears in dewdrops fell 
 
 Upon the listening ground. 
 
 But this is past, and naught remains 
 
 That raised thee o'er the brute; 
 Thy piercing shrieks and soothing strain 
 
 Are like, forever mute. 
 
 Now fare thee well ! More thou the cause 
 
 Than subject now of woe. 
 All mental pangs by time's kind laws 
 
 Hast lost the power to know. 
 
 O death! thou awe-inspiring prince 
 
 That keepst the world in fear, 
 Why dost thou tear more blest ones hence, 
 
 And leave him lingering here? 
 
 If I should ever send another, the subject will be a 'Bear, 
 Hunt.' 
 
 Yours as ever, 
 
 A. Lincoln. 
 
 Writing from Springfield, 111., on September 6, 1846, to 
 his former Springfield neighbor, Lincoln refers to a promise 
 once made Johnston to "bore" him with another "little canto 
 of what I called poetry." The 1846 message to Johnston ful- 
 filled this promise, the subject of the poem being Matthew 
 Gentry, the insane son of the leading citizen of Gentryville, 
 Ind., where Lincoln had lived for some thirteen years, during 
 his young manhood. In 1844 Lincoln was campaigning in 
 Southern Indiana, and it was at this time that the sad condition 
 of his former schoolmate was revealed to him. 
 
 Later on, Lincoln wrote The Bear Hunt, and sent it to his 
 friend. The original manuscript is now in the Morgan Library 
 in New York. 
 
42 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 THE BEAR HUNT 
 
 A wild bear chase didst never see? 
 
 Then hast thou lived in vain — 
 Thy richest bump of glorious glee 
 
 Lies desert in thy brain. 
 
 When first my father settled here, 
 'T was then the frontier line; 
 
 The panther's scream filled night with fear 
 And bears preyed on the swine. 
 
 But woe for bruin's short-lived fun 
 When rose the squealing cry ; 
 
 Now man and horse, with dog and gun 
 For vengeance at him fly. 
 
 A sound of danger strikes his ear ; 
 
 He gives the breeze: a snuff ; 
 Away he bounds, with little fear, 
 
 And seeks the tangled rough. 
 
 On press his foes, and reach the ground 
 Where's left his malf -munched meal; 
 
 The dogs, in circles, scent around 
 And find his fresh made trail. 
 
 With instant cry, away they dash, 
 
 And men as fast pursue ; 
 O'er logs they leap, through water splash 
 
 And shout the brisk halloo. 
 
 Now to elude the eager pack 
 
 Bear shuns the open ground, 
 Through matted vines he shapes his track, 
 
 And runs it, round and round. 
 
HIS FAVORITE POEMS "AND POETS 43 
 
 The tall, fleet cur, with deep-mouthed voice 
 
 Now speeds him, as the wind ; 
 While half -grown pup, and short-legged flee 1 
 
 Are yelping far behind. 
 
 And fresh recruits are dropping in 
 
 To join the merry corps; 
 With yelp and yell, a mingled din — 
 
 The woods are in a roar — 
 
 And round, and round the chase now goes, 
 
 The world's alive with fun ; 
 Nick Carter's horse his rider throws, 
 
 And Mose Hill drops his gun. 
 
 Now, sorely pressed, bear glances back, 
 
 And lolls his tired tongue, 
 When as to force him from his track 
 
 An ambush on him sprung. 
 
 Across the glade he sweeps for flight, 
 
 And fully is in view — 
 The dogs, new fired by the sight 
 
 Their cry and speed renew. 
 
 The foremost ones now reach his rear ; 
 
 He turns, they dash away, 
 And circling now the wrathful bear 
 
 They have him full at bay. 
 
 At top of speed the horsemen come, 
 
 All screaming in a row — 
 'Whoop!' Take him, Tiger!' 'Seize him. Drum!' 
 
 Bang — bang ! the rifles go ! 
 
 1 A small dog of nondescript breed. Local, U. S. A. — The Editof 
 
44 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 And furious now. the dogs he tears, 
 
 And crushes in his ire — 
 Wheels right and left, and upward rears, 
 
 With eyes of burning fire. 
 
 But leaden death is at his heart — 
 Vain all the strength he plies, 
 
 And, spouting blood from every part, 
 He reels, and sinks, and dies ! 
 
 And now a dinsome clamor rose, — 
 'But who should have his skin?' 
 
 Who first draws blood, each hunter knows 
 This prize must always win. 
 
 But, who did this, and how to trace 
 What's true from what's a lie, — 
 
 Like lawyers in a murder case 
 They stoutly argufy. 
 
 Aforesaid fice, of blustering mood, 
 
 Behind, and quite forgot, 
 Just now emerging from the wood 
 
 Arrives upon the spot. 
 
 With grinning teeth, and up-turned hair 
 Brim full of spunk and wrath, 
 
 He growls, and seizes on dead bear 
 And shakes for life and death — 
 
 And swells, as if his skin would tear, 
 And growls, and shakes again, 
 
 And swears, as plain as dog can swear 
 That he has won the skin ! 
 
 Conceited whelp ! we laugh at thee, 
 
 Nor mind that not a few 
 Of pompous, two-legged dogs there be 
 
 Conceited quite as you. 
 
HIS FAVORITE POEMS AND POETS 45 
 
 And here is An Unnamed Poem by Abraham Lincoln: 
 
 AN UNNAMED POEM BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 My childhood's home I see again 
 
 And sadden with the view; 
 And still, as memory crowds my brain 
 
 There's pleasure in it too. 
 
 O Memory! thou midway world 
 
 'Twixt earth and paradise, 
 Where things decayed and loved ones lost 
 
 In dreamy shadows rise. 
 
 And, freed from all that's earthly vile, 
 
 Seen hallowed, pure, and bright, 
 Like scenes in some enchanted isle 
 
 All bathed in liquid light. 
 
 As dusky mountains please the eye 
 
 When twilight chases day ; 
 As bugle-notes, that, passing by, 
 
 In distance die away ; 
 
 As leaving some grand waterfall, 
 
 We, lingering, list its roar — 
 So memory will hallow all 
 
 We've known, but know no more. 
 
 Near twenty years have passed away 
 
 Since here I bid farewell 
 To woods and fields, and scenes of play, 
 
 And playmates loved so well. 
 
 Where many were, but few remain 
 
 Of old familiar things ; 
 But seeing them to mind again 
 
 The lost and absent brings. 
 
46 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 The friends I left that parting" day, 
 
 How changed, as time has sped ! 
 Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray, 
 
 And half of all are dead. 
 
 I hear the loved survivors tell 
 
 How naught from death could save, 
 Till every sound appears a knell, 
 
 And every spot a grave. 
 
 I range the fields with pensive tread, 
 
 And pace the hollow rooms, 
 And feel (companion of the dead) 
 
 I'm living in the tombs. 
 
 When John Holmes Goodenow, of Maine, was introduced 
 to the President after he had been appointed Minister to 
 Turkey, and Lincoln was informed that his visitor was a grand- 
 son of John Holmes, one of the first senators from Maine, 
 he immediately began the recitation of a poetical quotation 
 which must have been more than a hundred lines in length. 
 Holmes never having met the President, was naturally aston- 
 ished as the President went on and on with this long recita- 
 tion ; the suspicion crossed his mind that Lincoln had suddenly 
 taken leave of his wits. But when he had concluded, he said : 
 "There ! that poem was quoted by your grandfather Holmes 
 in a speech which he made in the United States Senate" — and 
 he named the date and the occasion. As John Holmes' term 
 in the Senate ended in 1833, and Lincoln probably was im- 
 pressed by reading a copy of the speech, this feat of memory 
 appears most remarkable. 
 
 The Gettysburg Address may be arranged, and has been 
 printed, to read like a prose poem. The Second Inaugural, 
 too, is so nearly blank verse of a high order, that it gives evi- 
 dence of the poetry which was in his soul. Some of the high 
 points in his epoch-making addresses and arguments for Lib- 
 erty and Union are the impassioned utterances of the prophets 
 
HIS FAVORITE POEMS AND POETS 47 
 
 and of the Milton school of poetry. For Lincoln, aroused by 
 the great absorbing passion of his life, an unbroken Union, 
 is easily in the class of Isaiah defying the invader from the 
 walls of Jerusalem, and in exorcising the evil — slavery — he is 
 easily in the school of Milton hurling Lucifer from Heaven's 
 high battlements. Isaiah, Milton and Lincoln — were all three 
 cast in the same mould, all the three champions of liberty — 
 liberation from the oppressor, champions of unlicensed printing, 
 liberator and destroyer of trafficking in human beings. All 
 three poets with a power of expression all their own, all 
 similar in not finding appreciation in their own day, but 
 all assured of immortality as long as the stars endure. The 
 three altogether unlike in their opportunities, in their surround- 
 ings ; but all three rising to the highest pinnacle of fame and 
 immortality by reason of their message, which embraced all 
 mankind and which remains new and pertinent in every suc- 
 ceeding age. 
 
 Of the three, Lincoln is the last to obtain his rightful place. 
 Of the three, he is the one whose fame is still disputed. Of 
 the three, he is the one whose utterances are not all assembled. 
 But like the others, his words have become the common prop- 
 erty of mankind. They have found their way to the hearts 
 of all. Hence the joy of Oliver Wendell Holmes that the 
 President has expressed a liking for his poem ; hence Knox 
 is resurrected from the limbo of the forgotten by the liking of 
 his stanzas by the noblest American ; hence the crude stanzas 
 of Read remain unforgotten because of this modern Midas' 
 golden touch embalming them among the choice expressions 
 of that noble heart. The overburdened man had no time for 
 a great many books, for a great number of poems, and remained 
 true to these chosen few, and they are among the best in 
 English literature. He did, indeed, hear some readings, see a 
 number of plays, for he had to have some rest, and he found 
 it in the theatre, at the few readings and in the few well-worn 
 books : Burns. Shakespeare and especially the Bible — the book 
 he knew better than any other, a book full of poetry — Job, 
 
48 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
 The Song of Songs and The Psalms. No finer poetry can be 
 found anywhere and with this collection of divine poetry he 
 d;welt at all times, from his youth to his last day on earth ; 
 hence, his love of the poetry of Shakespeare and of Burns' 
 A' Man's a Man for a'that which is said to have inspired the 
 one act by which he will be remembered through the ages — 
 The Emancipation Proclamation — as well as the love for the 
 poor, the lowly, the distressed, the condemned and the aban- 
 doned. Nothing human was foreign to him ; hence his con- 
 tempt for wealth, for finery, for ostentation, for veneer and 
 for the haughty. "All men are equal," says my ancient 
 declaration, and he meant it and lived in the hope of seeing it 
 universally adopted, and when the time came he forced it upon 
 an unwilling and stiffnecked artistocracy. He taught them that 
 all men are equal, even as poor Robert Burns would have done, 
 even as poor Walt Whitman would have done, even as Isaiah 
 preached and practiced in far-off Jerusalem,, the city of Lin- 
 coln's dreams, whither he hoped to travel with his Mary after 
 they had concluded their work in Washington. 
 
 February 12, 1930. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 973.7L63B3H44AP0 C001 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. HIS FAVORITE POEMS AND 
 
 3 0112 031796847