The Man Lincoln
Not as the great who grow more great
Until from us they are apart—
He walks with us in man's estate;
We know his was a brother heart.
The marching years may render dim
The humanness of other men;
Today we are akin to him
As they who knew him best were then.
Wars have been won by mail-clad hands,
Realms have been ruled by sword-hedged kings,
But he above these others stands
As one who loved the common things;
The common faith of man was his,
The common faith of man he had—
For this today his grave face is
A face half joyous and half sad.
A man of earth! Of earthy stuff,
As honest as the fruitful soil,
Gnarled as the friendly trees, and rough
As hillsides that had known his toil;
Of earthy stuff—let it be told,
For earth-born men rise and reveal
A courage fair as beaten gold
And the enduring strength of steel.
So now he dominates our thought.
This humble great man holds us thus
Because of all he dreamed and wrought;
Because he is akin to us.
He held his patient trust in truth
While God was working out His plan,
And they that were his foes, forsooth,
Came to pay tribute to the Man.
Not as the great who grow more great
Until they have a mystic fame—
No stroke of fortune nor of fate
Gave Lincoln his undying name.
A common man, earth-bred, earth-born,
One of the breed who work and wait—
His was a soul above all scorn.
His was a heart above all hate.
PRESIDENT LINCOLN AT ANTIETAM
Photograph taken on the battlefield, September, 1862, with General McClellan and Allen Pinkerton
Edwin Arlington Robinson, born at Head Tide, Maine, December 22, 1869. Educated at Gardiner, Maine, and Harvard University, 1891-3. Member National Institute Arts and Letters. Author: The Torrent and The Night Before, 1896; The Children of the Night, 1897, 1905; Captain Craig (poems), The Town Down the River, 1910.