"The evening of March 22, 1864," says F. B. Carpenter, "was a most interesting one to me. I was with the President alone in his office for several hours. Busy with pen and papers when I went in, he presently threw them aside and commenced talking to me of Shakespeare, of whom he was very fond. Little Tad, his son, coming in, he sent to the library for a copy of the plays, and then read to me several of his favorite passages. Relapsing into a sadder strain, he laid the book aside, and leaning back in his chair said: "'There is a poem which has been a great favorite with me for years, which was first shown to me when a young man by a friend, and which I afterward saw and cut from a newspaper and learned by heart. I would,' he continued, 'give a great deal to know who wrote it,[P] but I have never been able to ascertain.' Then, half-closing his eyes, he repeated the verses to me as follows:" [P] This poem was written by William Knox, a Scotchman. O why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passes 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 child that a mother attended and loved, The mother that infant's affection that proved, The husband that mother and infant that blessed, Each, all, are away to their dwelling 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 that beloved her and praised Are alike from the minds of the living erased. The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne, The brow of the priest that the miter 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 to the steep, The beggar that wandered in search of his bread, Have faded away like the grass that we tread. The saint that enjoyed the communion of heaven, The sinner that 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 and the weed That wither 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 that our fathers have been; We see the same sights that our fathers have seen,-- We drink the same stream, and we feel the same sun, And we run the same course that our fathers have run.