Lincoln, the Man of the People

(The Lincoln Memorial by Daniel Chester
French, 1850-1931)

“I am naturally anti-slavery,” President Abraham Lincoln wrote in 1864. “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel.”

from LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE

Up from the log cabin to the Capitol,
One fire was on his spirit, one resolve —
To send the keen ax to the root of wrong,
Clearing a free way for the feet of God,
The yes of conscience testing every stroke,
To make his deed the measure of a man.
He built the rail-pile as he built the State,
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow:
The grip that swung the ax in Illinois
Was on the pen that set a people free.

~ Edwin Markham (1852-1940), American poet

Concord Hymn

(The Minute Man by Daniel Chester French,
1850-1931, in Concord, Massachusetts)

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote this poem in 1836 for the dedication of the obelisk at Concord. This monument was erected to commemorate the first battle of the Revolution at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The statue of the minute man was placed there later, in 1875.

CONCORD HYMN

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare,
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American essayist, poet and philosopher