"The piece of poetry of my own which I allude to I was led to write under the following circumstances: In the fall of 1844, thinking I might aid to carry the State of Indiana for Mr. Clay, I went to the neighborhood in that State in which I was raised, where my mother and my only sister are buried, and from which I had been about fifteen years. That part of the country is, within itself, as unpoetical as any spot of the earth; but still, seeing it and its objects and inhabitants aroused feelings in me which were certainly poetry, though whether my expression of these feelings is poetry is quite another question. When I got to writing, the change of subject divided the thing into four little divisions, or cantos, the first only of which I send you, and may send the others hereafter." "My childhood's home I see again, And sadden with the view; And still, as memory crowds my brain, There's pleasure in it, too. "Q memory! thou midway world 'Twixt earth and paradise, Where things decayed, and loved ones lost, In dreamy shadows rise; "And, freed from all that's earthly vile, Seem hallowed, pure, and bright, Like scenes in some enchanted isle, All bathed in liquid light. "As dusky mountains please the eye, When twilight chases day; As bugle notes that, passing by, In distance die away; "As leaving some grand waterfall, We, lingering, list its roar; So memory will hallow all We've known, but know no more. "Near twenty years have passed away Since here I bid farewell To woods and fields, and scenes of play, And playmates loved so well; "Where many were, but few remain, Of old, familiar things; But seeing them to mind again The lost and absent brings. "The friends I left that parting day, How changed! as time has sped Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray, And half of all are dead. "I hear the loud survivors tell How naught from death could save, Till every sound appears a knell, And every spot a grave. "I range the fields with pensive tread, And pace the hollow rooms, And feel (companions of the dead), I'm living in the tombs." CHAPTER VI. Lincoln and the Armstrong Case Famous Law Cases—The Clary Grove Boys—The Wrestling Contest—Jack and Hannah Armstrong—Trial of Their Son for Murder—Lincoln's Tact and the Acquittal—Letters from the Surviving Attorney in the Case—More Tangled History Untangled—Unpublished Facts Connected with Parties in the Case.