DEATHBED OF LINCOLN
Immediately after the President was shot in Ford's Theatre he was carried across the street to the house of William Petersen and placed on a single bed in a room at the end of the hall. All through that weary night the watchers stood by the bedside. He was unconscious every moment from the time the bullet entered his head until Dr. Robert King Stone, the family physician, announced at twenty-two minutes after seven on the following morning that he had breathed his last (April 15, 1865). Upon this Secretary Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, in a low voice said: "Now He Belongs to the Ages."
[THE DEATHBED]
| Silence falls, unbroken save by sobs of strong men In that room, where Lincoln, at the morning hour's chime Passed out into the unknown from the world of human ken. Gone his body and his life work from the world inclosed by time; But in the silence that was falling after breath of broken prayer, Words eternal broke the quiet like a bell toll on the air; Never in the world's wide story, wiser spoke nor Prophet, spoke nor Sages, Than these words that broke the silence: "He belongs now to the Ages!" "To the Ages!" well you spoke it, Stanton of the massive mind! He belongs, the years have shown it, to the world of human kind! Heard his story, where'er hearts throb o'er the world's far spreading way; Heard his story, children listen at the closing of the day; Heard his story, lovers speak it in their hushed and saddened tones As they wander in the twilight, dreaming of their coming homes; Heard his story, statesmen tell it, with a thrill of pride and truth; Heard his story, old men speak it to the country's growing youth. And the years have shown the Prophets, and the years have shown the Sages; Writ in fire these words of wisdom, "He belongs now to the Ages!" |
|
ABRAHAM LINCOLN President |
EDWIN M. STANTON Secretary of War |