on his grave?
He was a man whose like the world again
Shall never see, to vex with blame or praise;
The landmarks that attest his bright, brief reign,
Are battles, not the pomps of gala days!
The grandest leader of the grandest war
That ever time in history gave a place,--
What were the tinsel flattery of a star
To such a breast! or what a ribbon's grace!
'Tis to th' man, and th' man's honest worth,
The Nation's loyalty in tears upsprings;
Through him the soil of labor shines henceforth,
High o'er the silken broideries of kings.
The mechanism of eternal forms--
The shifts that courtiers put their bodies through--
Were alien ways to him: his brawny arms
Had other work than posturing to do!
[Illustration: PRESIDENT LINCOLN
Photograph by Alexander Gardner, Washington, D. C., 1865]
Rose Terry Cooke was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, February 17,
1827. Graduated at Hartford Female Seminary in 1843. She has written
many short stories and a number of books of poems.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Hundreds there have been, loftier than their kind,
Heroes and victors in the world's great wars:
Hundreds, exalted as the eternal stars,
By the great heart, or keen and mighty mind;
There have been sufferers, maimed and halt and blind,
Who bore their woes in such triumphant calm
That God hath crowned them with the martyr's palm;
And there were those who fought through fire to find
Their Master's face, and were by fire refined.
But who like thee, oh Sire! hath ever stood
Steadfast for truth and right, when lies and wrong
Rolled their dark waters, turbulent and strong;
Who bore reviling, baseness, tears and blood
Poured out like water, till thine own was spent,
Then reaped Earth's sole reward--a grave and monument!
[Illustration: PRESIDENT LINCOLN
Photograph by Brady, Washington, D. C., 1865]
Frederick Lucian Hosmer, born at Framingham, Massachusetts, October
16, 1840. Graduated at Harvard in 1869. Ordained in Unitarian Ministry
at Northboro, Massachusetts, in 1869. Author of _The Way of Life_,
_The Thought of God, in Hymns and Poems_.
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