“OH, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT?”
This is a sombre poem, but its virile strength and its literary merit have given it currency, and 283 / 239 commended it to the taste of many people, both weak and strong, who have the pensive temperament. Abraham Lincoln loved it and committed it to memory in his boyhood. Philip Phillips set it to music, and sang it—or a part of it—one day during the Civil war at the anniversary of the Christian Sanitary Commission, when President Lincoln, who was present, called for its repetition.* It was written by William Knox, born 1789, son of a Scottish farmer.
* This account so nearly resembles the story of Mrs. Gates' “Your Mission,” sung to a similar audience, on a similar occasion, by the same man, that a possible confusion by the narrators of the incident has been suggested. But that Mr. Phillips sang twice before the President during the war does not appear to be contradicted. To what air he sang the above verses is uncertain.
The poem has fourteen stanzas, the following being the first and two last—
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to rest in the grave.
* * * * * *
Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other like surge upon surge.
'Tis the wink of an eye; 'tis the draft of a breath
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Philip Phillips was born in Jamestown, Chautauqua Co., N.Y., Aug. 11, 1834, and died in 284 / 240 Delaware, O., June 25, 1895. He wrote no hymns and was not an educated musician, but the airs of popular hymn-music came to him and were harmonized for him by others, most frequently by his friends, S.J. Vail and Hubert P. Main. He compiled and published thirty-one collections for Sunday-schools and gospel meetings, besides the Methodist Hymn and Tune Book, issued in 1866.
He was a pioneer gospel singer, and his tuneful journeys through America, England and Australia gave him the name of the “Singing Pilgrim,” the title of his song collection (1867).