Remembering Father Abraham's 208th Birthday

Hello everyone –

In this edition of Quotemail, we remember the 208th 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 150^th birthday this year. J Here are some favorite quotations about Father Abraham to commemorate his life and legacy.

“Poem on the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Abraham Lincoln” (1909)

By Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)

Through the dim pageant of the years

A wondrous tracery appears:

A cabin of the western wild

Shelters in sleep a new-born child.

Nor nurse, nor parent dear can know

The way those infant feet must go;

And yet a nation’s help and hope

Are sealed within that horoscope.

Beyond is toil for daily bread,

And thought, to noble issues led,

And courage, arming for the morn

For whose behest this man was born.

A man of homely, rustic ways,

Yet he achieves the forum’s praise,

And soon earth’s highest meed has won,

The seat and sway of Washington.

No throne of honors and delights;

Distrustful days and sleepless nights,

To struggle, suffer and aspire,

Like Israel, led by cloud and fire.

A treacherous shot, a sob of rest,

A martyr’s palm upon his breast,

A welcome from the glorious seat

Where blameless souls of heroes meet;

And, thrilling through unmeasured days,

A song of gratitude and praise;

A cry that all the earth shall heed,

To God, who gave him for our need.

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.

Until next time –

Rob