Colfax
I’m happy to live now, the war is won.
God bless you, Mr. President, keep you too.
Lincoln
You will excuse me, gentlemen. I go,
For Mrs. Lincoln waits.
(He goes out.)
Oglesby
The other day
Lincoln was with Charles Sumner down the James,
Was reading Shakespeare, read aloud three times
Those lines which read: “Duncan is in his grave,
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further.”
Colfax
Did you note to-night
He looked those words: “Nothing can touch him further”?
These months before how ghastly gray his face!
What droop of melancholy in his eyes!
What weariness without words, what ultimate woe!
And now to-night he stood transfigured here
Clothed in a great serenity and a joy
As if his life had wrought what he would have it.
Oglesby