The Birth of Lincoln

No choir celestial sang at Lincoln's birth,

No transient star illumined the midnight sky

In honor of some ancient prophecy,

No augury was given from heaven or earth.

He blossomed like a flower of wondrous worth,

A rare, sweet flower of heaven that ne'er should die,

Altho' the vase in which it grew should lie

Most rudely rent amid the darkling dearth.

There, in that humble cabin, separate

From everything the world regarded great,

Where wealth had never pressed its greedy feet,

Where honor, pomp or fame found no retreat;

E'en there was born beneath the eye of God

The noblest man His footstool ever trod.