ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE DEDICATION OF THE CEMETERY AT GETTYSBURG Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate--we cannot consecrate--we cannot hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. _Abraham Lincoln_. November 19th, 1863. SELECTION XVIII THE PICKET OF THE POTOMAC "All quiet along the Potomac," they say, "Except now and then a stray picket Is shot as he walks on his beat to and fro, By a rifleman hid in the thicket." 'Tis nothing--a private or two now and then Will not count in the tale of the battle; Not an officer lost--only one of the men Breathing out all alone the death-rattle. All quiet along the Potomac to-night, Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming, Their tents in the ray of the clear autumn moon, And the light of the watch-fires gleaming. A tremulous sigh from the gentle night wind Through the forest leaves slowly is creeping, While the stars up above, with their glittering eyes, Keep watch while the army is sleeping. There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread, As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, And thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed Far away in the hut on the mountain. His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim, Grows gentle with memories tender, As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep, For their mother,--may heaven defend her!