Shall our Earth again toward God a little swifter, nearer roll, Even thus Shall our children touch the stars where we have only glimpsed the Goal. Even thus and only thus Through the Future's arch-like span In his spirit shall they grow, To his law they shall be bound, With his love of Man be crowned! Think of the miracle! A child so like our child, A babe born in the wild, A little clod of clay, sweet blossoming and beautiful, Are the eyes and lips, and spread Is the heart and coiled the brain— And lo, the Silences are slain In our Wilderness of Silence where we were only two, Man and Wife, Comes this third and like the voice of God breaks through With his life And he answers back our Silence with his babbling, wordy strife Born of woman, Born of man, He is human And he can Grow beyond us in the grandeur we began! And none greater than this boy Whom this day We revere with holy joy, And we thank the stars the clay In Kentucky took on human shape and spoke, In the woodlands grew a creature of the wild, And lo, as he grew ugly, gaunt, What wisdom came to feed his want, And before God are equal souls— And this it is That round him such a glory rolls For not alone he knew it as a truth, He made it of his blood, and of his brain— To think Old Abe was dead Dead, and the day's work still undone, Dead, and war's ruining heart athrob, And earth with fields of carnage freshly spreadMillions died fighting, But in this man we mourned Those millions, and one other And the States to-day uniting, North and South, East and West, Speak with a people's mouth A rhapsody of rest To him our beloved best, Our big, gaunt, homely brother Our huge Atlantic coast-storm in a shawl, Our cyclone in a smile-our President, Who knew and loved us all With love more eloquent Than his own words-with Love that in real deeds was spent. Shelley's was a world of Love, Made his a world where love gets into deeds- Where the high Love was meeting human needs! Memorably American! Through all his life this mighty Faith unfurled! That if our hearts could catch his glow A faith like Lincoln's would transform the world! Oh, to pour love through deeds— To be as Lincoln was! That all the land might fill its daily needs. Glorified by a human Cause! Then were America a vast World-Torch Proclaiming from the Atlantic's rocky porch Ah, is this not the day That rolls the Earth back to that mighty hour When the sweet babe in the log-cabin lay And God was in the room, a Presence and a Power?— When all was sacred-even the father's heart And the stirred Wilderness stood still, And roaring flume and shining hill O living God, O Thou who living art, And real, and near, draw, as at that babe's birth, Into our souls and sanctify our Earth— Let down Thy strength that we endure As mothers and fathers of our own Lincoln-child— Rear this wild blossom through its soft petals of clay, That hour by hour We may endow it with more human power Than is our own— That it may reach the goal Our Lincoln long has shown! O Child-flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, Soul torn from out our Soul! May you be great, and pure, and beautiful A Soul to search this world To be a father, brother, comrade, son, A toiler powerful, A man with strength unfurled, A man whose toil is done One with God's Law above, Work wrought through Love! ABRAHAM LINCOLN George Alfred Townsend THE peaceful valley reaching wide, A cheerful heart he bore alway, Though tragic years clashed on the while; Death sat behind him at the play— His last look was a smile. His single arm crushed wrong and thrall— That grand good will we only dreamed, Two races weep around his pall, One saved and one redeemed. No battle pike his march imbrued; The trampled flag he raised again, Down fell the brand in treason's hand The holy crest by murder stained, |