PRESIDENT LINCOLN
Photograph by Alexander Gardner, Washington, D. C., 1864
Wilbur Dick Nesbit was born at Xenia, Ohio, September 16, 1871. Educated in the public schools at Cedarville, Ohio. Was printer and reporter on various Ohio and Indiana papers until 1898; verse writer and paragrapher Baltimore American, 1899-1902; since that year writer of verse and humor Chicago Evening Post and other newspapers, contributor of stories and poems to magazines and periodicals. Author of Little Henry's Slate, 1903; The Trail to Boyland and Other Poems, 1904; An Alphabet of History, 1905; The Gentleman Ragman, 1906; A Book of Poems, 1906; The Land of Make-Believe and Other Christmas Poems, 1907; A Friend or Two, 1908; The Loving Cup (compilation), 1909; The Old, Old Wish, 1911; My Company of Friends, 1911; If the Heart be Glad, 1911; co-author with Otto Hauerbach of The Girl of My Dreams, a musical comedy, 1910.
[THE MAN LINCOLN]
| Not as the great who grow more great Until from us they are apart— He walks with us in man's estate; We know his was a brother heart. The marching years may render dim The humanness of other men; Today we are akin to him As they who knew him best were then. Wars have been won by mail-clad hands, Realms have been ruled by sword-hedged kings, But he above these others stands As one who loved the common things; The common faith of man was his, The common faith of man he had— For this today his grave face is A face half joyous and half sad. [top] A man of earth! Of earthy stuff, As honest as the fruitful soil, Gnarled as the friendly trees, and rough As hillsides that had known his toil; Of earthy stuff—let it be told, For earth-born men rise and reveal A courage fair as beaten gold And the enduring strength of steel. So now he dominates our thought. This humble great man holds us thus Because of all he dreamed and wrought; Because he is akin to us. He held his patient trust in truth While God was working out His plan, And they that were his foes, forsooth, Came to pay tribute to the Man. Not as the great who grow more great Until they have a mystic fame— No stroke of fortune nor of fate Gave Lincoln his undying name. A common man, earth-bred, earth-born, One of the breed who work and wait— His was a soul above all scorn. His was a heart above all hate. |