Happy 211th Birthday, Father Abraham!

Hello everyone –

In this edition of Quotemail, we remember the 211th birthday of Abraham Lincoln on February 12th. President Lincoln is widely considered to be one of the “Founding Fathers” of the University of Illinois, which is celebrating its 153^rd birthday this year. Here are some favorite quotations about Father Abraham to commemorate his life and legacy.

“WE ARE COMING, FATHER ABRAHAM”

Words by James Sloan Gibbons

Music by L. O. Emerson

1. We are coming, Father Abraham, 300,000 more,

From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore.

We leave our plows and workshops, our wives and children dear,

With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear.

We dare not look behind us but steadfastly before.

We are coming, Father Abraham, 300,000 more!

CHORUS:

We are coming, we are coming our Union to restore,

We are coming, Father Abraham, 300,000 more!

2. If you look across the hilltops that meet the northern sky,

Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry;

And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloudy veil aside,

And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride;

And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour,

We are coming, father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

CHORUS

3. If you look up all our valleys where the growing harvests shine,

You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast forming into line;

And children from their mother's knees are pulling at the weeds ,

And learning how to reap and sow against their country's needs;

And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage door,

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more!

CHORUS

4. You have called us, and we're coming by Richmond's bloody tide,

To lay us down for freedom's sake, our brothers' bones beside;

Or from foul treason's savage group, to wrench the murderous blade;

And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade.

Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone before,

We are coming, Father Abraham, 300,000 more!

CHORUS

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) on Abraham Lincoln

Printed in the New York World – 1909

“Of all the great national heroes and statesmen of history Lincoln is the only real giant. Alexander, Frederick the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, Gladstone and even Washington stand in greatness of character, in depth of feeling and in a certain moral power far behind Lincoln. Lincoln was a man of whom a nation has a right to be proud; he was a Christ in miniature, a saint of humanity, whose name will live thousands of years in the legends of future generations. We are still too near to his greatness, and so can hardly appreciate his divine power; but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.”

“Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight” (1914)

By Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931)

It is portentous, and a thing of state

That here at midnight, in our little town

A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,

Near the old court-house pacing up and down,

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards

He lingers where his children used to play,

Or through the market, on the well-worn stones

He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,

A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl

Make him the quaint great figure that men love,

The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.

He is among us: — as in times before!

And we who toss and lie awake for long

Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.

His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings.

Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?

Too many peasants fight, they know not why,

Too many homesteads in black terror weep.

The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.

He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.

He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now

The bitterness, the folly and the pain.

He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn

Shall come; — the shining hope of Europe free:

The league of sober folk, the Workers’ Earth,

Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.

It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,

That all his hours of travail here for men

Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace

That he may sleep upon his hill again?

“Lincoln” by Vachel Lindsay

Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all,

That which is gendered in the wilderness

From lonely prairies and God’s tenderness.

Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream,

Born where the ghosts of buffaloes still dream,

Whose spirit hoof-beats storm above his grave,

Above that breast of earth and prairie-fire —

Fire that freed the slave.

Happy Birthday, Father Abraham! J

Rob