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The poem was set to music following Lincoln's death.
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PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FAVORITE POEM. OH, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTALS BE PROUD.
MUSIC Composed and Inscribed to the American Nation, by A. Sedgwick. 3 1/2
F.B. Carpenter, Esq., the celebrated painter of the "Emancipation Proclamation before the Cabinet," related an interesting anecdote of the President in reference to this poem, much admired by Mr. Lincoln. He says:
"I have been urged by several friends to send you the inclosed poem, written down by myself from Mr. Lincoln's lips; and although it may not be new to all of your readers, the events of the last week give it now a peculiar interest:
"The circumstances under which this copy was written are these: I was with the President alone one evening in his room, during the time I was painting my large picture at the White House last year. He presently threw aside his pen and papers, and began to talk to me of Shakespeare. He sent little 'Tad,' his son, to the library to bring a copy of the plays, and then read to me several of his favorite passages, showing genuine appreciation of the great poet. Relapsing into a sadder strain, he laid the book aside, and leaning back in his chair, said:
"There is a poem which has been a great favorite with me for years, which was first shown to me when a young man by a friend, and which I afterwards saw and cut from a newspaper and learned by heart. I would, he continued, 'give a great deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain.'
"Then, half closing his eyes, he repeated to me the lines which I enclose to you. Greatly pleased and interested, I told him I would like, if ever an opportunity occurred, to write them down from his lips. He said he would some time try to give them to me. A few days afterwards he asked me to accompany him to the temporary studio of Mr. Swayne the Sculptor, who was making a bust of him at the Treasury Department. While he was sitting for the bust, I was suddenly reminded of the poem, and said to him that then would be a good time to dictate it to me. He complied, and sitting upon some books at his feet, as nearly as I can remember, I wrote the lines down one by one, from his lips."
New York: Published by Wm. A. Pond & Co., No. 547 Broadway. Boston: O. Ditson & Co. Chicago: Root & Cady. Milwaukee: H.N. Hempstead. Cincinnati: C.Y. Fonda.
Entered according to Act of Congress, A.D. 1862, by A. Sedgwick, in the Clerk's Office of the District of the United States for the Eastern District of New York.
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OH! WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD? A. SEDGWICK.
Andante cantabile.
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He
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passeth from life to his rest in the grave! The leaves of the oak, and the willow shall fade, Be scatter'd around and together be laid; And the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall moulder to dust, together shall lie. The
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infant and mother attended and lov'd, The mother and infant's affection who prov'd, The husband that mother and infant who bless'd, Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest!
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2. The hand of the king, that the sceptre hath borne; The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn; The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap, The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep; The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread Have faded away like the grass that we tread. So the multitude goes, like the flow'r or the weed That withers away to let others succeed; So the multitude comes, even those we behold, To repeat ev'ry tale that has often been told!
3. For we are the same, our father's have been; We see the same sights our father's have seen; We drink the same stream and view the same sun, And run the same course our father's have run. The thoughts we are thinking our father's would think; From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink; To the life we are clinging, they also would cling, But it speeds for us all--like a bird on the wing! They loved! but the story we cannot unfold; They scorned! but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved! but no wail from their slumber will come; They joyed! but the tongue of their gladness is dumb!
4. They died!--aye! they died; we things that are now, That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, And make in their dwellings a transient abode, Meet the things that they met, on their pilgrimage road. Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, We mingle together in sunshine and rain; And the smile and the tear--the song and the dirge, Still follow each other like surge upon surge. 'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death; From the gilded saloon, to the bier and the shroud! Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?