[Illustration: (Frontispiece) PRESIDENT LINCOLN, Photograph by Brady, 1864] The Poets' Lincoln TRIBUTES IN VERSE TO THE MARTYRED PRESIDENT _Selected by_ OSBORN H. OLDROYD AUTHOR OF "THE ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN" AND EDITOR OF THE "WORDS OF LINCOLN" _With many portraits of Lincoln, illustrations of events in his life, etc._ PUBLISHED BY THE EDITOR AT "THE HOUSE WHERE LINCOLN DIED" WASHINGTON, D. C. 1915 Copyright 1915, by OSBORN H. OLDROYD ACKNOWLEDGMENT The Editor is most grateful to the various authors who have willingly given their consent to the use of their respective poems in the compilation of this volume. It has been a somewhat difficult problem, not only to select the more appropriate productions, but also to find the names of their authors, for in his Lincoln collection there are many hundreds of poems which have appeared from time to time in magazines, newspapers and other productions, some of which are accompanied by more than one name as author of the same poem. In a number of instances it has been difficult to ascertain the name of the actual owner of the copyright, the poems having been printed in so many forms without the copyright mark attached. The Editor in particular extends his grateful acknowledgment to the Houghton Mifflin Company for permission to reprint the "Emancipation Group" by John G. Whittier; the "Life Mask" by Richard Watson Gilder; "The Hand of Lincoln" by Clarence Stedman; "Commemoration Ode" by James Russell Lowell, and the "Gettysburg Address" by Bayard Taylor; to Charles Scribner's Sons for two "Lincoln" poems by Richard Henry Stoddard; and to the J. B. Lippincott Company for the poem "Lincoln" by George Henry Boker. The Editor is also grateful to Dr. Marion Mills Miller for his contribution of the introduction and a poem specially written for the collection, and also for assistance in the editorial work. FOREWORD No great man has ever been spoken of with such tender expressions of high regard as has been Abraham Lincoln. Especially is this true of the tributes of esteem made by the poets to his memory. It is therefore desirable that these should be preserved for future generations, and at this time, the fiftieth anniversary of his untimely death, it is peculiarly proper that they should be presented to the public.