Lincoln’s Only Poem

Lincoln’s Only Poem:  (Actually I found out on Google that he has written at least one other))

As many know, Lincoln is my favorite amongst many favorite special ‘characters’ in human history, including some current favorites. It just seems impossible to tire of him no matter how many years pass. I first read about Lincoln at a very young age in Carl Sandburg’s biography of Abraham Lincoln. That was one of the earliest biographies, but after that more books have been written about Abraham Lincoln than any other person in history except Jesus; if one considers Jesus human. It always seemed strange to me that if God had a son it would  be human. What kind of DNA would show up on a DNA test? 

It appears to me—I guess a lot of things ‘appear to me’—that it is most often the formative and terminational years which are the most unstable periods in our lives. In the formative years everything is so new and thus bewildering and uncertain so much of the time. During our productive years we, to varying degrees, are more certain about things, more challenged with career, family, and economic matters, and via genetics, environment, and lot’s of luck, we accomplish at least some modest goals—- and then comes the terminational years (the years after retirement). Retirement is far more likely to be pleasant if we have some gratitude for our productive years. Our life is also is far more contented if we can amuse ourselves. I think the terminational years are more frustrating for those who spend every day seeking out someone to amuse them. Inane chit chat, in excess, does not seem to generate any real sense of personal contentment, just more boring jabber about nothing much important under the sun. 

Before I drift too far from the title, below is a poem Lincoln wrote after he returned to his childhood neighborhood in Indiana where he spent his formative years up until around 18 years of age. He was 35 years old when he made the trip to his boyhood community. Here is the poem he wrote:

Poetry Written by Abraham Lincoln Springfield, Illinois In the spring of 1846 Abraham Lincoln sent some poetry to his friend Andrew Johnston, and on September 6 enclosed additional stanzas with his letter. At Lincoln's request, Johnston published portions of the poetry anonymously in the Quincy, Illinois Whig on May 5, 1847. Lincoln offered Johnston an explanation of the first poem ("My Childhood Home I See Again"), saying he had visited his boyhood neighborhood in southern Indiana in the fall of 1844 while campaigning for presidential hopeful Henry Clay. He commented that the region was "as unpoetical as any spot of the earth," but it brought back memories of loved ones such as his mother and sister who lay buried there.

He made Matthew Gentry the subject of Part II, telling Johnston: "He is three years older than I, and when we were boys we went to school together. He was rather a bright lad, and the son of the rich man of our poor neighborhood. At the age of nineteen he unaccountably became furiously mad, from which condition he gradually settled down into harmless insanity. When, as I told you in my other letter I visited my old home in the fall of 1844, I found him still lingering in this wretched condition. In my poetizing mood I could not forget the impression his case made upon me."

My Childhood Home I See Again

[I]

My childhood's home I see again,
And sadden with the view;
And still, as memory crowds my brain,
There's pleasure in it too.

O Memory! thou midway world
'Twixt earth and paradise,
Where things decayed and loved ones lost
In dreamy shadows rise,

And, freed from all that's earthly vile,
Seem hallowed, pure, and bright,
Like scenes in some enchanted isle
All bathed in liquid light.

As dusky mountains please the eye
When twilight chases day;
As bugle-tones that, passing by,
In distance die away;

As leaving some grand waterfall,
We, lingering, list its roar--
So memory will hallow all
We've known, but know no more.

Near twenty years have passed away
Since here I bid farewell
To woods and fields, and scenes of play,
And playmates loved so well.

Where many were, but few remain
Of old familiar things;
But seeing them, to mind again
The lost and absent brings.

The friends I left that parting day,
How changed, as time has sped!
Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray,
And half of all are dead.

I hear the loved survivors tell
How nought from death could save,
Till every sound appears a knell,
And every spot a grave.

I range the fields with pensive tread,
And pace the hollow rooms,
And feel (companion of the dead)
I'm living in the tombs.

[II]

But here's an object more of dread
Than ought the grave contains--
A human form with reason fled,
While wretched life remains.

Poor Matthew! Once of genius bright,
A fortune-favored child--
Now locked for aye, in mental night,
A haggard mad-man wild.

Poor Matthew! I have ne'er forgot,
When first, with maddened will,
Yourself you maimed, your father fought,
And mother strove to kill;

When terror spread, and neighbors ran,
Your dange'rous strength to bind;
And soon, a howling crazy man
Your limbs were fast confined.

How then you strove and shrieked aloud,
Your bones and sinews bared;
And fiendish on the gazing crowd,
With burning eye-balls glared--

And begged, and swore, and wept and prayed
With maniac laught[ter?] joined--
How fearful were those signs displayed
By pangs that killed thy mind!

And when at length, tho' drear and long,
Time smoothed thy fiercer woes,
How plaintively thy mournful song
Upon the still night rose.

I've heard it oft, as if I dreamed,
Far distant, sweet, and lone--
The funeral dirge, it ever seemed
Of reason dead and gone.

To drink it's strains, I've stole away,
All stealthily and still,
Ere yet the rising God of day
Had streaked the Eastern hill.

Air held his breath; trees, with the spell,
Seemed sorrowing angels round,
Whose swelling tears in dew-drops fell
Upon the listening ground.

But this is past; and nought remains,
That raised thee o'er the brute.
Thy piercing shrieks, and soothing strains,
Are like, forever mute.

Now fare thee well--more thou the cause,
Than subject now of woe.
All mental pangs, by time's kind laws,
Hast lost the power to know.

O death! Thou awe-inspiring prince,
That keepst the world in fear;
Why dost thos tear more blest ones hence,
And leave him ling'ring here?

I like to write (an understatement), and yet I really don’t think I could write a poem. Maybe I just don’t have the patience or talent to become skilled at writing poems. Frankly, most poems don’t interest me as much as non poem literary forms. Like for Lincoln, and most people I suspect, the formative years seem so long ago, but full of so many memories—bad and good—all dimmed and tainted by so many years gone by. The feelings of youth we can try to recover, but it really isn’t possible; thus reality sinks in that our youthful past is really gone—gone with the wind.

By the time our terminational years arrive, we struggle to accept that sooner than later, we too, our past and present shall be gone with the wind. I know, many really believe they will go to Heaven. Good luck with that. No-one can prove otherwise, albeit logic seems to dictate that such belief is quite a stretch—a rather self serving illusion.  Since life for everyone is not a level playing field, judging whose behavior qualifies for Heaven would be a task far too complicated for human judgement. There are currently 7.5 billion people on our planet. That’s a lot for God individually to review and judge, not to mention all the prayers coming in, with over 120,000 dying every day.  We humans are individually self-serving by nature and while given the gift of life via a spinning wheel of fortune, we of course want more and so invent a Heaven as our final destination. Maybe, but more likely not.