WHEN the Norn-Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down
To make a man to meet the mortal need.
She took the tried clay of the common road—
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth,
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy;
Tempered the heap with thrill of mortal tears;
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff.
It was a stuff to hold against the world,
A man to match our mountains, and compel
The stars to look our way and honor us.
The color of the ground was in him, the red earth;
The tang and odor of the primal things;
The rectitude and patience of the rocks;
The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn;
The courage of the bird that dares the sea;
The justice of the rain that loves all leaves;
The pity of the snow that hides all scars;
The loving-kindness of the wayside well;
The tolerance and equity of light
That gives as freely to the shrinking weed
As to the great oak flaring to the wind—
To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn
That shoulders out the sky.
And so he came.
From prairie cabin up to Capitol,
One fair Ideal led our chieftain on.
Forevermore he burned to do his deed
With the fine stroke and gesture of a king.
He built the rail-pile as he built the State,
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow,
The conscience of him testing every stroke,
To make his deed the measure of a man.
So came the Captain with the mighty heart;
And when the step of Earthquake shook the house,
Wrenching the rafters from their ancient hold,
He held the ridgepole up, and spiked again
The rafters of the Home. He held his place—
Held the long purpose like a growing tree—
Held on through blame and faltered not at praise.
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down
As when a kingly cedar green with boughs
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.
[D] From Lincoln and Other Poems by Edwin Markham. By permission of The McClure Company and the author. Copyright, 1901, by Edwin Markham.
This poem was revised by Mr. Markham especially for use in this book. Copyright, 1908, by Edwin Markham. Reprinting in whatever form is expressly forbidden, unless through special permission of the author.
Tom Taylor[E]
YOU lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier,
You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace,
Broad for the self-complacent British sneer,
His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face,
His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair,
His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease,
His lack of all we prize as debonair,
Of power or will to shine, of art to please.
You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh,
Judging each step as though the way were plain:
Reckless, so it could point its paragraph
Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain.
Beside this corpse that bears for winding-sheet
The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew,
Between the mourner at his head and feet,
Say, scurril-jester, is there room for you?
Yes! He had lived to shame me from my sneer,
To lame my pencil and confute my pen;
To make me own this hind of princes peer,
This rail-splitter, a true-born king of men.
My shallow judgment I had learned to rue,
Noting how to occasion's height he rose,
How his quaint wit made home truth seem more true,
How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows.
How humble, yet how hopeful, he could be:
How in good fortune and in ill the same:
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he,
Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame.
He went about his work—such work as few
Ever had laid on head and heart and hand—
As one who knows, where there's a task to do,
Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace command;
Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow,
That God makes instruments to work His will,
If but that will we can arrive to know,
Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill.
So he went forth to battle, on the side
That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's,
As in his peasant boyhood he had plied
His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting mights—
The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil,
The iron-bark, that turns the lumberer's axe,
The rapid that o'erbears the boatman's toil,
The prairie hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks,
The ambushed Indian, and the prowling bear—
Such were the deeds that helped his youth to train:
Rough culture—but such trees large fruit may bear,
If but their stocks be of right girth and grain.
So he grew up a destined work to do,
And lived to do it: four long-suffering years.
Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report lived through,
And then he heard the hisses changed to cheers,
The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise,
And took both with the same unwavering mood:
Till, as he came on light, from darkling days
And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood,
A felon hand, between the goal and him,
Reached from behind his back, a trigger prest,
And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim,
Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest!
The words of mercy were upon his lips,
Forgiveness in his Heart and on his pen,
When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse
To thoughts of peace on earth, good will to men.
The Old World and the New, from sea to sea,
Utter one voice of sympathy and shame.
Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high!
Sad life, cut short just as its triumph came!
A deed accurst! Strokes have been struck before
By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt
If more of horror or disgrace they bore;
But thy foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly out,
Vile hand, that brandest murder on a strife,
Whate'er its grounds, stoutly and nobly striven,
And with the martyr's crown crownest a life
With much to praise, little to be forgiven.
[E] The authorship of this poem seems to be surrounded by somewhat of a doubt. Mark Lemon, editor of Punch at the time when this was written, is sometimes accredited with writing the tribute; then again, Spielman's History of Punch ascribes it to Shirley Brooks, who also was editor of Punch for a few years.
The poem first appeared anonymously in the London Punch, May 6, 1865. Accompanying it was an engraving of Brittania mourning at Lincoln's bier and placing a wreath thereon. Columbia was represented as weeping at the head of the President, and at the foot of the bier was a slave with broken shackles. Underneath was the inscription, "Brittania sympathizes with Columbia."
It is now generally believed that the author of the famous tribute was the journalist and dramatist, Tom Taylor, the author of the comedy, Our American Cousin, a performance of which President Lincoln was witnessing at the time of his assassination.