The ambushed Indian, and the prowling bear Such were the needs 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 change 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, 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, O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN !1 WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892) O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; trills, for you the bugle For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning ; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck You've fallen cold and dead. 1 From "Leaves of Grass." Copyright, 1900, by David McKay, Philadelphia. Used by permission of the publisher. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I with mournful tread Fallen cold and dead. THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 1 ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809-1865) Fourscore 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 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 de 1 From facsimile reproduction of President Lincoln's speech, to be found in Nicolay and Hay's "Abraham Lincoln," Hapgood's "Abraham Lincoln,” and other histories and biographies. tract. 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 the 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. |