The Poets' Lincoln Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: LINCOLN IN 1858

From a photograph by S. M. Fa.s.sett of Chicago]

An act of Congress July 9, 1790, established the District of Columbia as the National Capital, and provided that prior to the first Monday of December, 1800, the Commissioners should have finished a suitable building for the sessions of Congress. The site of the Capitol was included in L'Enfant's plan for the city. The cornerstone was laid September 18, 1793, with Masonic rites, George Was.h.i.+ngton officiating.

The wings of the central building were completed in 1811, and were partially burned by the British, in 1814. The entire central building was finished in 1827. The cornerstone of the extension was laid by President Fillmore, July 4, 1851. The extensions were first occupied by Congress 1857 and 1859. Up to that time the Senate Chamber was the present Supreme Court Room, and the Hall of Representatives was the present National Statuary Hall. The dome was finished during the administration of President Lincoln. The total cost of the Capitol building and grounds was about thirty million dollars. The remains of President Lincoln were escorted from the White House to the Capitol at three o'clock P.M., on the 19th of April, 1865. The number in the procession was estimated at forty thousand, and that many more were spectators along the route. The burial service was conducted by Dr.

Gurley. The special train bearing the remains left at 8 A.M., Friday, April 21, for Springfield, Illinois, stopping at Baltimore, Maryland; Harrisburg and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Albany and Buffalo, New York; Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; Chicago, Illinois, reaching Springfield, Illinois, the 3d of May, and was buried the following day. The body lay in state in all of the above cities.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAPITOL

The Second Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, in front of the Capitol, Was.h.i.+ngton, March 4, 1865]

Edwin Markham, born at Oregon City, Oregon, April 23, 1852; settled in California in 1857, and worked there during his boyhood, princ.i.p.ally as a blacksmith. Worked his way through the San Jose Normal School and Santa Rosa College. Became a writer of stories and verse for papers and magazines, and princ.i.p.al and superintendent of California schools.

Was the author of _The Man With the Hoe, and Other Poems_ (1899); _The Man With the Hoe, with Notes by the Author_ (1900); _The End of the Century_ (1899); _Lincoln, the Great Commoner_ (1900); _The Mighty Hundred Years; Lincoln and Other Poems_ (1901); _The Shoes of Happiness_ (1915). His _Man With the Hoe_ was extensively republished and gave him wide fame.

LINCOLN THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE

When the Norn-Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour, Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, She bent the strenuous Heavens and came down To make a man to meet the mortal need.

She took the tried clay of the common road-- Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth, Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy; Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff.

It was a stuff to wear for centuries, A man that matched the mountains, and compelled The stars to look our way and honor us.

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth; The tang and odor of the primal things-- The rect.i.tude and patience of the rocks; The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn; The courage of the bird that dares the sea; The justice of the rain that loves all leaves; The pity of snow that hides all scars; The loving-kindness of the wayside well; The tolerance and equity of light That gives as freely to the shrinking weed As to the great oak flaring to the wind-- To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn That shoulders out the sky.

And so he came.

From prairie cabin up to Capitol, One fair ideal led our chieftain on.

Forevermore he burned to do his deed With the fine stroke and gesture of a king.

He built the rail pile as he built the State, Pouring his splendid strength through every blow, The conscience of him testing every stroke, To make his deed the measure of a man.

So came the Captain with the mighty heart; And when the step of earthquake shook the house, Wresting the rafters from their ancient hold, He held the ridge-pole up and spiked again The rafters of the Home. He held his place-- Held the long purpose like a growing tree-- Held on through blame and faltered not at praise, And when he fell, in whirlwind, he went down As when a kingly cedar, green with boughs, Goes down with a great shout upon the hills, And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WHITE HOUSE]

The corner-stone was laid by George Was.h.i.+ngton on the 13th of October, 1792. The mansion was first occupied by President John Adams in the year 1800, also by every succeeding President. British troops burned it in 1814, in President Madison's term. It was the first public building erected in Was.h.i.+ngton. It is constructed of Virginia freestone, and is 170 feet in length, 80 feet in depth, and consists of a rustic bas.e.m.e.nt, two stories and an attic.

John Vance Cheney, born Groveland, New York, December 29, 1848.

Graduated Temple Hill Academy, Genesee, New York, at seventeen.

a.s.sistant princ.i.p.al there two years later. Practiced law, New York, 1875-6; librarian Free Public Library, San Francisco, 1887-94; Newberry Library, Chicago, 1894-1909; author, _The Old Doctor_, 1881; and a number of poems, 1887-1911.

LINCOLN

The hour was on us; where the man?

The fateful sands unfaltering ran, And up the way of tears He came into the years.

Our pastoral captain. Forth he came, As one that answers to his name; Nor dreamed how high his charge, His work how fair and large,

To set the stones back in the wall Lest the divided house should fall, And peace from men depart, Hope and the childlike heart.

We looked on him; "'Tis he," we said, "Come crownless and unheralded, The shepherd who will keep The flocks, will fold the sheep."

Unknightly, yes: yet 'twas the mien Presaging the immortal scene, Some battles of His wars Who sealeth up the stars.

Not he would take the past between His hands, wipe valor's tablets clean, Commanding greatness wait Till he stands at the gate;

Not he would cramp to one small head The awful laurels of the dead, Time's mighty vintage cup, And drink all honor up.

No flutter of the banners bold Borne by the l.u.s.ty sons of old, The haughty conquerors Set forward to their wars;

Not his their blare, their pageantries, Their goal, their glory, was not his; Humbly he came to keep The flocks, to fold the sheep.

The need comes not without the man; The prescient hours unceasing ran, And up the way of tears He came into the years.

Our pastoral captain, skilled to crook The spear into the pruning hook, The simple, kindly man, Lincoln, American.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHERE LINCOLN WORs.h.i.+PPED

New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.]

President Lincoln and family attended this church during his Administration. The pew that they occupied is still preserved in its black walnut tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, though the rest of the sanctuary has been refurnished.

Lyman Whitney Allen, born at St. Louis, November 19, 1854. Bachelor of Arts, Was.h.i.+ngton University, St. Louis, 1878; later Master of Arts, Princeton Theological, 1878-80; Post-graduate studies at Princeton University; (D.D., University of Wooster, 1897). Ordained Presbyterian Minister, 1882; stated supply Kimmswick, Missouri, 1881-3; DeSoto, Missouri, 1883-5; Pastor-elect Carondelet Church, St. Louis, Missouri, 1885-9; Pastor South Park Church, Newark, New Jersey, since 1889.

Director Board of Home Missions, Presbyterian; Chaplain New Jersey Society D. A. R.; Member Society American Authors; New Jersey Society S. A. R. Club, Princeton (New York). Has written many poems and articles, including the New York _Herald's_ $1,000 prize poem which was published in 1895.

Rev. Dr. Lyman Whitney Allen of Newark, New Jersey, had for his guest Chief Justice Wendell Phillips Stafford of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. Judge Stafford addressed the Men's Club of Dr.

Allen's church one evening, and next day, in company with his host, visited the Lincoln statue on the court-house plaza. On the train that bore him back to Was.h.i.+ngton that day, Judge Stafford wrote the poem on the Statue. (See page 236).