Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight

Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight

(in Springfield, Illinois)

 

It is portentous, and a thing of state

That here at midnight, in our little town

A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,

Near the old court-house pacing up and down, 

 

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards

He lingers where his children used to play,

Or through the market on the well-worn stones

He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.

 

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,

A famous high top-hat, and a plain worn shawl

Make him the quaint, great figure that men love,

The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.

 

He cannot sleep upon his hill-side now.

He is among us:--as in times before!

And we who toss and lie awake for long

Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.

 

His head is bowed, he thinks on men and kings.

Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?

Too many peasants fight, they know not why,

Too many homesteads in black terror weep.

 

The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.

He sees the dreadnoughts scouring every main.

He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now

The bitterness, the folly and the pain.

He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn

Shall come;--the shining hope of Europe free:

The league of sober folk, the Worker's Earth,

Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp, and Sea.

 

It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,

That all his hours of travail here for men

Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace

That he may sleep upon his hill again?

-Vachel Lindsay

 

Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) was an American poet who was born and died in Springfield. This is from his book The Congo and Other Poems of 1914. 

 

One wonders if he's walking again. 

 

The young Abraham Lincoln reading by firelight (at midnight?) is a pen-and-ink drawing by my grandfather. 

 

 

 

(Belated) Poem For A Thursday: Lindsay

The Eagle That Is Forgotten

(John P. Altgeld. Born December 30, 1847; died March 12, 1902)

Sleep softly...eagle forgotten...under the stone.

Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own. 

"We have buried him now," thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced.

They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced. 

They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you day after day.

Now you were ended. They praised you,...and laid you away. 

The others that mourned you in silence and terror and truth.

The widow bereft of her crust, and the boy without youth,

The mocked and the scorned and the wounded, the lame and the poor

That should have remembered forever,...remember no more. 

Where are those lovers of yours, on what name do they call

The lost, that in armies wept over your funeral pall?

They call on the names of a hundred high-valiant ones,

A hundred white eagles have risen the sons of your sons,

The zeal in their wings is a zeal that your dreaming began

The valor that wore out your soul in the service of man.

Sleep softly,...eagle forgotten...under the stone

Time has its way with you there and the clay has its own. 

Sleep on, O brave-hearted, O wise man, that kindled the flame--

To live in mankind is far more than to live in a name,

To live in mankind, far, far more...than to live in a name.

-Vachel Lindsay

John Peter Altgeld was elected governor of Illinois in 1892. He resisted the use of federal troops to combat the Pullman strike and pardoned the (surviving) Haymarket rioters. He was one of the first progressive politicians elected to office.

Vachel Lindsay was an American poet who died in 1931.

Jennifer has a great Robert Frost poem this week.