A

LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY

February 12, 1809

S back we look across the ages

A few great figures meet the eyeKings, prophets, warriors, poets, sagesWhose names and deeds will never die.

The rest are all forgotten, perished,

Like trees in trackless forests vast,
But those whose memory men have cherished
Seem living still and have no past.

Not always of high race or royal
These messengers of God to men,
But lowly-born, true-hearted, loyal,

They wielded sword or brush or pen.

Such was our Lincoln, who forever
Is hailed as Freer of the Slave,

Whose lofty purpose and endeavour

New hope to hopeless bondmen gave.

Gaunt, hewed as if from rugged boulders,
He bore a world of care and wo,

Which creased his brow and bent his shoulders,
And as a martyr laid him low.

LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY-[Continued]

And so we tell our sons his story,

We celebrate his humble birth,

And crown his deeds with all the glory
That men can offer on this earth.

Hail, Lincoln! As the swift years lengthen
Still more majestic grows thy fame;
The ties that bind us to thee strengthen;
Starlike-immortal shines thy name.

NATHAN HASKELL DOLE

LINCOLN'S HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY

WE

February 12, 1909

E name a day and thus commemorate
The hero of our nation's bitter strife;

The martyr who for freedom gave his life.

We feel the day made holy by his fate.

The wheels of time then turn their ceaseless round, And slowly wear our memory away:

The holy day becomes a holiday;

Its motive changes with its change of sound.

Let not our purpose thus be set aside:

An hour, 'twixt work and pleasure, let us pause,
And consecrate ourselves to serve the cause
For which our hero strove, our martyr died.

He lived to reunite our severed land;
To liberate a million slaves he died,
And that the great experiment be tried
Where each one ruled, in ruling has a hand.

LINCOLN'S HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY-[Continued]
What tho' the pessimists, amid their fears,
The great experiment to failure doom.
Let us recall his trust in time of gloom,
And steadfast persevere a thousand years.

Tho' sure that victories will yet be won,
Like those our fathers gained laboriously,
'Tis not for us to boast vaingloriously
As if our battles were already done.

Our elders might have sung with better grace
The verse that vaunts us ever free and brave,
Had not our land so long oppressed the slave,
Stolen from over sea, to our disgrace.

Yet in our pride, how little right have we
To blame our elders for an ancient wrong
That gave the weak in bondage to the strong.
Are we ourselves so wholly brave and free?

Yes, with primeval courage, brave and strong,
When banded 'gainst a foe; yes, free from kings—
But not so brave and free in smaller things
That we should celebrate ourselves in song.

Not that it counts for naught that we have grown

To be the leaders of a continent,

And not that we could be for long content
'Mid any other folk except our own.