Lincoln23
Richard Henry Stoddard.
BY EDNA DEAN PROCTOR
Now must the storied Potomac
Laurels for ever divide,
Now to the Sangamon fameless
Give of its century’s pride.
Sangamon, stream of the prairies,
Placidly westward that flows,
Far in whose city of silence
Calm he has sought his repose.
Over our Washington’s river
Sunrise beams rosy and fair,
Sunset on Sangamon fairer—
Father and martyr lies there.
Kings under pyramids slumber,
Sealed in the Lybian sands;
Princes in gorgeous cathedrals
Decked with the spoil of the lands
Kinglier, princelier sleeps he
Couched ’mid the prairies serene,
Only the turf and the willow
Him and God’s heaven between!
Temple nor column to cumber
Verdure and bloom of the sod—
So, in the vale by Beth-peor,
Moses was buried of God.
Break into blossom, O prairies!
Snowy and golden and red;
Peers of the Palestine lilies
Heap for your glorious dead!
Roses as fair as of Sharon,
Branches as stately as palm,
Odors as rich as the spices—
Cassia and aloes and balm—
Mary the loved and Salome,
All with a gracious accord,
Ere the first glow of the morning
Brought to the tomb of the Lord
Wind of the West! breathe around him
Soft as the saddened air’s sigh
When to the summit of Pisgah
Moses had journeyed to die.
Clear as its anthem that floated
Wide o’er the Moabite plain,
Low with the wail of the people
Blending its burdened refrain.
Rarer, O Wind! and diviner,—
Sweet as the breeze that went by
When, over Olivet’s mountain,
Jesus was lost in the sky.
Not for thy sheaves nor savannas
Crown we thee, proud Illinois!
Here in his grave is thy grandeur;
Born of his sorrow thy joy.
Only the tomb by Mount Zion
Hewn for the Lord do we hold
Dearer than his in thy prairies,
Girdled with harvests of gold.
Still for the world, through the ages
Wreathing with glory his brow,
He shall be Liberty’s Saviour—
Freedom’s Jerusalem thou!
Notes
23 By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Company.