The Wonderful Story of Lincoln: And the Meaning of His Life for the Youth and Patriotism of AmericaStevens, C. M. (Charles McClellan)
History
The Wonderful Story of Lincoln: And the Meaning of His Life for the Youth and Patriotism of America
Stevens, C. M. (Charles McClellan)
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Juvenile literature
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote for the funeral services at Concord,
Massachusetts, a poem of which the following is the last stanza:
"Great captains, with their guns and drums,
Disturb our judgment for the hour,
But at last, silence comes;
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower,
Our children shall behold his fame,
The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American."
II. THE TIME WHEN "THOSE WHO CAME TO SCOFF REMAINED TO PRAY"
Lincoln's death was received throughout the South generally as the
death of an enemy. Well do they know now that it could have been said
of them then, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."
The sorrow throughout the North was as in the midst of Egypt's ancient
woe. It was as if "There was not a house where there was not one
dead."
As was once said of a great martyr of liberty, slain three centuries
before, so it could be said of Lincoln, "He went through life bearing
the load of a people's sorrows upon his shoulders with a smiling face.
While he lived he was the guiding star of a whole brave nation, and
when he died the little children cried in the streets."
Periodicals that had ridiculed him from his first appearance in their
view, and that had caused many of their readers to believe him little
better than a clown in the arena of affairs, or than a court fool
before the nations, dropped their defaming caricatures of him, and
gave him nearer justice.
One of the most belittling and besmirching periodicals of England
against Lincoln was the "London Punch." The war-president of the
United States was, largely from this source of authority, the jest of
all Europe.
But the issue following the assassination of Lincoln contained a great
picture. It was symbolical of England laying a wreath of flowers upon
Lincoln's coffin. The picture was drawn by Tenniel and with it was a
most penitent poem by Tom Taylor, who was author of the play, "Our
American Cousin," which Lincoln was attending when assassinated. Five
of the expressive stanzas are as follows:
"So he grew up, a destined work to do,
And lived to do it; four long suffering years,
Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report lived through,
And then he heard the hisses changed to cheers;
"The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,
And took both with the same unwavering mood:
Till, as he came to light, from darkling days,
And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood,
"A felon hand, between the goal and him,
Reached from behind his back, a trigger pressed,--
And those perplexed and patient eyes grew dim,
Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest!
"Beside this corpse, that bears for winding sheet
The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew,
Between the mourners at his head and feet,
Say, scurril jester, is there room for you?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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