On the Life-Mask of Abraham Lincoln
This bronze doth keep the very form and mold
Of our great martyr's face. Yes, this is he:
That brow all wisdom, all benignity;
That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks that hold
Like some harsh landscape all the summer's gold;
That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea
For storms to beat on; the lone agony
Those silent, patient lips too well foretold.
Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men
As might some prophet of the elder day—
Brooding above the tempest and the fray
With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken.
A power was his beyond the touch of art
Or armed strength—his pure and mighty heart.
THE HAND OF LINCOLN
The Saturday after the nomination of Mr. Lincoln for President of the United States, the Committee appointed to inform him of the said nomination arrived in Springfield and performed this duty in the evening at his home.
The cast of his hand was made the next morning by Mr. Leonard W. Volk. While the sculptor was making the cast of his left hand, Lincoln called his attention to a scar on his thumb. "You have heard me called the 'rail-splitter' haven't you?" he said, "Well, I used to split rails when I was a young man, and one day, while sharpening a wedge on a log, the axe glanced and nearly took off my thumb."
Edmund Clarence Stedman was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on the 8th of October, 1833. He entered Yale College at the age of sixteen and distinguished himself in Greek and English Composition. He was the editor of several papers in Connecticut and in 1856 removed to New York City—a larger field for his literary abilities. He was a contributor to Vanity Fair, Putnam's Monthly, Harper's Magazine and other periodicals. His poems: The Diamond Wedding, How Old John Brown Took Harper's Ferry, The Ballad of Lager-Bier, gave him some reputation. He was war-correspondent for the World during the early campaigns of the Army of the Potomac from the Headquarters of General Irwin McDowell and General B. McClellan. He died in 1908.