But fixed His Word; His saving power remains:
Thy realm shall last; thy own Messiah reigns.
“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,