| On freedom's summit, Oh, how grand Stood Lincoln ruler of our land, As he issued the sublime command Let the enslaved be free. Ere long he saw the Bondmen rise; Ere long as Freedmen seize the prize, The precious boon of liberty. A backward glance he cast Into the valley of the past, Amid the shade and gloom Discerning slavery's tomb. Out from the depths his upturned eyes Beheld the fleeing clouds the brighter skies. Upon him shone a glory like the sun, Reflecting "peace toward all, malice toward none." As thus he filled his high exalted place, The brave emancipator of a race, He thought of the fierce struggle and the victory And humbly deemed himself to be Only the instrument of a Divine decree. Rejoicing in the faith of brighter coming days His "fervent prayers" were merged in those of praise. [top] Like unto psalmists of the olden time His uttered thoughts inspired the nation's song, Throughout the land the chorus rose sublime, The exultant triumph of the right o'er wrong. "Behold, what God the Lord hath wrought," More than we asked, or hoped, or thought. Through the "Red sea" of blood and carnage He brought our nation free of bondage. With Moses sing, yea shout O North; With Miriam answer back O South: That "He hath triumphed gloriously." ..... Oh why the sudden blotting out of light? The cloud of sorrow, dark as Plutonian night, That cast its lengthening shadow o'er the land; Changing to funeral dirge the choral grand. Swift as the typhoon's breath— The harbinger of death— The cruel deed of hate Swept the grand chief away. Unto this day, and ever aye, The nation mourns her martyr's fate. |
[ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE DEDICATION
OF THE CEMETERY AT GETTYSBURG]
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate [top] a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us,—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
November 19, 1863.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.