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The Master

He knew that undeceiving fate

Would shame us whom he served unsought;
He knew that he must wince and wait-
The jest of those for whom he fought;

He knew devoutly what he thought
Of us and of our ridicule;

He knew that we must all be taught
Like little children in a school.

We gave a glamor to the task

That he encountered and saw through,
But little of us did he ask,

And little did we ever do.

And what appears if we review

The season when we railed and chaffed?

It is the face of one who knew

That we were learning while we laughed.

The face that in our vision feels
Again the venom that we flung,
Transfigured to the world reveals
The vigilance to which we clung.
Shrewd, hallowed, harassed, and among
The mysteries that are untold,

The face we see was never young

Nor could it ever have been old.

For he, to whom we had applied
Our shopman's test of age and worth,
Was elemental when he died,

As he was ancient at his birth:

The saddest among kings of earth,

Bowed with a galling crown,

this man

Met rancor with a cryptic mirth,

Laconic-and Olympian.

The love, the grandeur, and the fame,

Are bounded by the world alone;

The calm, the smoldering, and the flame

Of awful patience was his own:

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With him they are forever flown
Past all our fond self-shadowings,
Wherewith we cumber the Unknown
As with inept, Icarian wings.

For we were not as other men:
'Twas ours to soar and his to see:

But we are coming down again,
And we shall come down pleasantly;
Nor shall we longer disagree
On what it is to be sublime,

But flourish in our perigee

And have one Titan at a time.

Edwin Arlington Robinson [1869

ON THE LIFE-MASK OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

THIS bronze doth keep the very form and mold
Of our great martyr's face. Yes, this is he:

That brow all wisdom, all benignity;

That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks that hold
Like some harsh landscape all the summer's gold;
That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea
For storms to beat on; the lone agony
Those silent, patient lips too well foretold.
Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men
As might some prophet of the elder day,—
Brooding above the tempest and the fray

With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken.
A power was his beyond the touch of art

Or armed strength-his pure and mighty heart.

Richard Watson Gilder [1844-1909]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

[Written by the editor of London Punch, as that journal's apology and atonement]

You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier,

You, who, with mocking pencil, wont to trace,
Broad for the self-complaisant British sneer,
His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face,

Abraham Lincoln

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His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair,
His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease,

His lack of all we prize as debonair,

Of power or will to shine, of art to please;

You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh,
Judging each step as though the way were plain;
Reckless, so it could point its paragraph

Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain,

Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet.
The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew,
Between the mourners at his head and feet,
Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you?

Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer,
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen;
To make me own this hind of Princes peer,
This rail-splitter a true-born king of men.

My shallow judgment I had learned to rue,
Noting how to occasion's height he rose,

How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more true,
How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows;

How humble, yet how hopeful, he could be;
How, in good fortune and in ill, the same;
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he,

Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame.

He went about his work-such work as few

Ever had laid on head and heart and hand

As one who knows, where there's a task to do,

Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace command;

Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow,
That God makes instruments to work His will,

If but that will we can arrive to know,

Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill.

So he went forth to battle, on the side

That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's,

As in his peasant boyhood he had plied

His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting mights,—

The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil,

The iron bark that turns the lumberer's ax,
The rapid, that o'erbears the boatman's toil,
The prairie, hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks,

The ambushed Indian, and the prowling bear,Such were the needs that helped his youth to train: Rough culture-but such trees large fruit may bear, If but their stocks be of right girth and grain.

So he grew up, a destined work to do,

And lived to do it: four long-suffering years'
Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through,
And then he heard the hisses change to cheers,

The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,

And took both with the same unwavering mood; Till, as he came on light, from darkling days, And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood,

A felon hand, between the goal and him,

Reached from behind his back, a trigger pressedAnd those perplexed and patient eyes were dim, Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest.

The words of mercy were upon his lips,

Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen,
When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse
To thoughts of peace on earth, good will to men.

The Old World and the New, from sea to sea,
Utter one voice of sympathy and shame.
Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high!
Sad life, cut short just as its triumph came!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A deed accursed!

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Strokes have been struck before

By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt

If more of horror or disgrace they bore;

But thy foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly out,

Vile hand, that brandest murder on a strife,
Whate'er its grounds, stoutly and nobly striven,
And with the martyr's crown, crownest a life
With much to praise, little to be forgiven.
Tom Taylor [1817-1880]

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

[1807-1882]

Nec turpem senectam

Degere, nec cithara carentem.-Hor. i. 31

"NOT to be tuneless in old age!"

Ah! surely blest his pilgrimage,

Who, in his Winter's snow,

Still sings with note as sweet and clear

As in the morning of the year

When the first violets blow.

Blest!-but more blest, whom Summer's heat,

Whom Spring's impulsive stir and beat,

Have taught no feverish lure; Whose Muse, benignant and serene, Still keeps his Autumn chaplet green Because his verse is pure!

Lie calm, O white and laureate head!
Lie calm, O Dead, that art not dead,

Since from the voiceless grave,

Thy voice shall speak to old and young
While song yet speaks an English tongue
By Charles' or Thamis' wave!

Austin Dobson [1840

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