tinction, and that not for its own
outstanding merit, but for its association with Abraham Lincoln.

Knox's earliest volume, "The Harp of Zion," was published in 1825, and
does not contain this poem. What appears to have been an inclusive
volume of the poems of Knox was published in London and Edinburgh in
1847, and bore the title "The Lonely Hearth, The Songs of Israel, Harp
of Zion, and Other Poems." This includes the poem which bears the title
"Mortality." It is interesting to recall that it has sometimes been
printed with the title "Immortality." To that title, however, it can
bear no claim.

It will be of interest to compare the poem in its entirety with the
stanzas which Lincoln quoted on the occasion of his oration in memory of
the deceased President, General Zachary Taylor.

MORTALITY

BY WILLIAM KNOX

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift flying meteor, a fast flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie.

The infant a mother attended and loved;
The mother that infant's affection who proved;
The husband that mother and infant who blessed,
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure,--her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those who loved her and praised,
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn;
The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave.

The peasant whose lot was to saw and to reap;
The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep;
The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven;
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven;
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed,
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes,