One evening when Mr. Carpenter, the artist, was alone with Mr. Lincoln in his study, the President said: “There is a poem that has been a great favorite with me for years, to which my attention was first called when a young man, by a friend, and which I afterward saw and cut from a newspaper and carried in my pocket till, by frequent reading, I had it by heart. I would give a great deal to know who wrote it, but I could never ascertain.”

He then repeated the poem, now familiar to the public, commencing, “Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?”

This poem, which was written by William Knox, a young Scotchman, a contemporary of Sir Walter Scott, suits well the thoughtful, melancholy mood habitual to Mr. Lincoln. It is said{300} that a man may be known by his favorite poem. Whether this can be said of men in general may be doubted. In the case of Abraham Lincoln I think those who knew him best would agree that the sadness underlying the poem found an echo in the temperament he inherited from his mother. I am sure my readers will be glad to find the poem recorded here, even though they may have met with it before:
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting 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, 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 blest—
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,{301}
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 can not 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—ay, they died; we things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,{302}
And make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
’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?

The last stanza will call to mind the startling suddenness with which Abraham Lincoln, the Chief Magistrate of a great nation, passed from the summit of power to the solemn stillness of death. Was it a sad, prophetic instinct that caused the mind of the great martyr to dwell so constantly upon these solemn strains?

No man seems to have been more clearly indicated as the instrument of Providence than Abraham Lincoln. It seems strange in the eyes of men that a rough youth, born and reared in the backwoods, without early educational advantages, homely and awkward, and with no polish of manner save that which proceeded from a good heart, should have been selected as the Guide and Savior of a great nation. But God’s ways are not as our ways, nor is His choice as ours. Mr. Lincoln had this advantage,—coming from the ranks of the people, he never lost sight of his sympathy for{303} his class. His nature and his sympathies were broad and unconfined.

He has been well described by one reared like himself, in the free atmosphere of the West: “Nearly every g............