Father Abraham's 215th Birthday

Hello everyone – 

Quotemail returns after a monthlong hiatus to edutain its readers once again! We resume our fortnightly schedule with a collection of versified and prose reflections on Abraham Lincoln, whose 215^th birthday is coming up next Monday, February 12^th.

 

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.

 

Ann Rutledge: Lincoln’s First Love – And Her Enduring Influence on His Life

Abraham Lincoln is pictured here with Ann Rutledge, in an illustration from page 276 of The Soul of Ann Rutledge: Abraham Lincoln’s Romance, by Bernie Babcock, published in 1919. The caption reads: “"Abraham, this place seems holy and you are its prophet." (Image Credit: Public Domain via Project Gutenberg)

                 Abraham Lincoln and Ann Rutledge were close friends – and possibly romantically involved – while they studied under the tutelage of Mentor Graham, the schoolmaster in New Salem, Illinois. Her untimely death in 1835 devastated young Lincoln, and he was never afterwards entirely free of melancholy.

                Edgar Lee Masters commemorated Ann Rutledge in this epitaph. His words are engraved on her tombstone at Oakland Cemetery in Petersburg, Illinois:

“Out of me, unworthy and unknown,

The vibrations of deathless music!

‘With malice toward none, with charity for all.’

Out of me, the forgiveness of millions toward millions,

And the beneficent face of a nation

Shining with justice and truth.

I am Ann Rutledge, who sleep beneath these weeds,

Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln,

Wedded to him, not through union,

But through separation.

Bloom forever, O Republic,

From the dust of my bosom!”

 

Excerpt from Lincoln’s Speech at Peoria: October 16, 1854

“Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south – let all Americans – let all lovers of liberty everywhere -- join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make, and to keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.”

 

“Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight” (1914)

By Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931)

                Editor’s Note: This poem portrays Father Abraham as a bodhisattva figure – a saintly person who continues to be actively involved with the world even after death. Lindsay views our 16^th President as walking among us yet, unseen, still praying, striving, and working for justice, freedom, and peace. This is one of my favorite poems of all time! J

 

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?

 

Concluding Reflection:

“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.

 

Resources for Further Exploration

• The Abraham Lincoln Institute @ https://abrahamlincoln.org/
• Abraham Lincoln Online @ https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/
• The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum @ https://presidentlincoln.illinois.gov/

 

Until next time –

Rob 😊