Mr. Lincoln’s favorite poem was “Oh! Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?” written by William Knox, a Scotchman, although Mr. Lincoln never knew the author’s name. He once said to a friend:
“This poem has been a great favorite with me for years. It was first shown to me, when a young man, by a friend. I afterward saw it and cut it from a newspaper and learned it by heart. I would give a great deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain.”
| “Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?-- |
| Like a swift-fleeing meteor, a fast-flying cloud, |
| A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, |
| He passeth 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 infant a mother attended and loved; |
| The mother, that infant’s affection who proved, |
| The husband, that mother and infant who blessed |
| --Each, all, are away to their dwellings 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 who loved her and praised, |
| Are alike from the minds of the living erased. |
| “The hand of the king, that the sceptre hath borne, |
| The brow of the priest, that the mitre 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 up the steep; |
| The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread, |
| Have faded away like the grass that we tread. |
| “The saint, who enjoyed the communion of heaven, |
| The sinner, who 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 or the weed |
| That withers 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 our fathers have been; |
| We see the same sights our fathers have seen; |
| We drink the same stream, we view the same sun, |
| And run the same course our fathers have run. |
| “The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think; |
| From the death we are shrinking, our fathers would shrink; |
| To the life we are clinging, they also would cling |
| --But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing. |
| “They loved--but the story we cannot unfold; |
| They scorned--but the heart of the haughty is cold; |
| They grieved--but no wail from their slumber will come; |
| They joyed--but the tongue of their gladness is dumb. |
| “They died--aye, they died--and we things that are now, |
| That walk on the turf that lies o’er their brow, |
| And make in their dwellings a transient abode, |
| Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. |
| “Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, |
| Are mingled together in sunshine and rain; |
| And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, |
| Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. |
| “‘Tis the wink of an eye,--’tis the draught of a breath; |
| --From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, |
| From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud: |
| --Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?” |
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