Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Thursday, February 12, 2009

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, February 12, 1809--April 15, 1865




The top photo is the last image taken of the great man on April 10, 1865. The bottom is the first known image taken--date unknown.


The greatest of all our presidents, Abraham Lincoln. The more I read about him, the more I am convinced of this.
In the 1830s, Dr. Jason Duncan introduced Lincoln to the poem "Mortality" (sometimes called "Immortality" or "Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud?"). At the time, the increasingly melancholy Lincoln lived in New Salem, Illinois, and had already lost several friends and relatives to death.
Gradually Lincoln memorized the piece, but did not know the author's identity until late in life. He became so identified with the poem that some people thought he had written it. However, he only wished he had. He once remarked, "I would give all I am worth, and go in debt, to be able to write so fine a piece as I think that is."
Lawrence Weldon, who traveled the law circuit with Lincoln, recalled Lincoln reciting the poem in 1860. He said, "The weird and melancholy association of eloquence and poetry had a strong fascination for Mr. Lincoln's mind. Tasteful composition, either of prose or poetry, which faithfully contrasted the realities of eternity with the unstable and fickle fortunes of time, made a strong impression on his mind."
President Lincoln wrote poetry, too:
Short Verses
Around the time when Lincoln was fifteen or seventeen, he wrote a few short poems in his arithmetic book but they are not very substantial.
Abraham Lincoln is my nam[e]
And with my pen I wrote the same
I wrote in both hast and speed
and left it here for fools to read
After his compositions of 1846, Lincoln continued to write poetry. Such poems include the short piece dedicated to Linnie Haggard, daughter of the owner of a hotel where Lincoln stayed in Winchester, Illinois, dated September 30, 1858.
To Linnie—
A sweet plaintive song did I hear,
And I fancied that she was the singer—
May emotions as pure, as that song set a-stir
Be the worst that the future shall bring her.
Mr. Lincoln's favorite poem:
Mortality
By William Knox
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave
He 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 blest,--
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 depths of the grave.

The peasant, whose lot was to sow 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 -- even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream, we view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.
The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking, our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging, they also would cling; --
But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.
They loved -- but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned -- but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved -- but no wail from their slumber will come;
They joyed -- but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
They died -- ay, they died; -- we things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwellings a transient abode;
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.
'
Tis the wink of an eye -- 'tis the draught of a breath--
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud:--
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?






14 comments:

dmarks said...

I was looking forward to seeing a good Lincoln post here. Thanks!

rockync said...

Ummm, you think perhaps that top photo was taken in 1865 instead of 1965?

Otherwise, I enjoyed this post.

Shaw Kenawe said...

rockync,

Thanks for catching that.

dmarks said...

And you might want to check the birthday while you are at it.

rockync said...

Hey, we're all pining for the 1960s lately! LOL!

Shaw Kenawe said...

dmarks,

That's what I get for blogging and not drinking coffee!

Thanks for that catch.

I am a dork!

Shaw Kenawe said...

dmarks,

That's what I get for blogging and not drinking coffee!

Thanks for that catch.

I am a dork!

Unknown said...

To have a President that has the courage to make hard decisions based on his basic sense of right and wrong.
To have a President who put the Union before his party, his political philosophy, or his personal morals.
To have a President who could actually learn, grow, and better himself simply by being President.
To have a President who's oral and written skills show him to be one of the best men of all time, not just his time.
To have a President who knew his limitations, and sought help from those more experienced, even his political enemies. That's confidence.
To have a President so lacking in personal ego that his position, or political future was never an impediment to his decision making process.
A man who thought the negro was subservient to the white race, yet, bet the future of our country on the decision to uphold the Constitution and make law that blacks should not only be free, but treated equal. This was his greatest achievement both politically and personally.
A great man? Of course he was, all we have to do is compare him to the men that have followed him, there is no one even close.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Time,

I agree. We will never see anyone like him again.

Mozart, Darwin, Lincoln, Einstein.

Pasadena Closet Conservative said...

I'm happy to see so many bloggers paying tribute to this great President today.

Arthurstone said...

Time typed:

'A great man? Of course he was, all we have to do is compare him to the men that have followed him, there is no one even close.'


Perhaps.

There is one huge advantage the reputations of Lincoln, Jefferson, Washington enjoy. Indeed any President from the 19th century and earlier has an advantage simply because they lived and did their work prior to electronic media.

Personal writings, documents, biographies, painted portraits, the occasional photograph make up what we 'know' about these men. We don't know what their voices sounded like. Accent. Syntax. Grammar. How they moved. Posture. Limp? How they held themselves. Eye contact. Smirk? Rolling eyes? An endless list of visual and aural cues we take for granted in assessing our current leaders.

And in this wired age of instantaneous communication through audio and video image is all important.

Can you imagine what Oprah would have done with this?

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200510/lincolns-clinical-depression

or this:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/israel/familyjefferson.html

I can.

It strikes me that the endless barrage of information regarding our leaders and our celebrities (same thing really) in our 24/7 connectified world does, if nothing else, serve to diminish its subject. Our endless curiosity about public figures private lives has served to so trivialize our duties as citizens that we take seriously the feeble musings of Joe the Plumber.

In fact in electronic media there is no essential difference between Joe the Plumber and a Justice of the Supreme Court when you think about it. Television and radio treat a kid tipping over his/her bicycle exactly the same as a tsunami striking Java.

Electronic media shrinks the great and expands the tiny.

Lincoln was a great man and I'm just as happy for him and his reputation he wasn't around to have Rush and Glenn Beck explain their problems with the Gettysburg Address.

Unknown said...

Arthurstone:

No doubt that a man like Lincoln probably would not fare well in our glitter media, he wasn't even a very good looking man.

But put in our time, I think he was intelligent enough to catch on and then some. He used photography and the media of his time, like a pro.

I believe his written word would still inspire, even today's people.

I have no doubt that Lincoln could more than handle a Rush, or other demagogues of our day. He was no stranger to such people and his intellect would over come.

His day was full of blowhards, liars, political dirty tricks, and the politics of personal destruction.

I would love to see Lincoln go one on one with Rush, he would tear him apart.

Although, Lincoln would surprise today's people, because his politics were far right of the thinking of today's people.

He could handle the politicians, I doubt he could handle the morals of today's people. He would spend most of his time chastising us for our misguided lives.

Arthurstone said...

Time typed:

'He could handle the politicians, I doubt he could handle the morals of today's people. He would spend most of his time chastising us for our misguided lives.'


Not much more 'misguided' than any other generation. Greed, avarice, selfishness and sexual intercourse aren't 21st century inventions.

But my point isn't to criticize Lincoln but merely to suggest that the sort of media scrutiny our present age turns on its leaders is so overwhelming as to distort beyond recognition. Lincoln likely wouldn't be the Lincoln we remember so proudly if he had to endure (as Obama does and as GWB sorta did) the instantaneous broadcast and 'analysis' of virtually his every breath.

It isn't a question of going up against Rush or O'Reilly or Coulter one on one. Any sentient being can shine against people like that. Likewise I agree the mechanics of politics wouldn't be the problem.

Rather it's the other 23 hours 59 minutes of non-stop rumor mongering, exaggeration, sloppy reporting and spectacle overflowing our bandwidth every 24/7.

Dorothy Rabinowitz, editorialist at the WSJ, was on NPR this AM responding to the first twenty one (or so) days of the Obama administration. She raved on for a few minutes about the disappointment of Obama's inaugural address then compared it to FDR's speech December 8, 1941. Comparing the response of a President three weeks in office with one in office nearly eight years! And the simpleton Scott Simon didn't bother to point out the problem with her analogy.

One example from an endless list of lies, misinformation and idiotic opinion.

Cheers!

Shaw Kenawe said...

Obama will get better as he grows in office.