Strikes the clod (And while an angel-host through wood and clearing sweeps!) Born in the wild The Child Naked, ruddy, new, Wakes with the piteous human cry and at the mother-heart sleeps. To the mother wild berries and honey, To the child a swaddling of flannel- To see the first sweet word penned Frail Mother of the Wilderness- Soon in the wide wilderness, Up a trail of the wild coon, In a lair of the wild bee, The rugged boy, by danger's stress, Of strife-engendered harmony Went to school where Life itself was master, Went to church where Earth was minister- Felt his future manhood stir! All about him the land, Eastern cities, Western prairie, Wild, immeasurable, grand; But he was lost where blossomy boughs make airy Bowers in the forest, and the sand Makes brook-water a clear mirror that gives back Green branches and trunks black And clouds across the heavens lightly fanned. Yet all the Future dreams, eager to waken, And the bough of boy has only to be shaken. Little recks he of war, Of national millions waiting on his word- In the heart of the boy, the little babe of the wild- Of Time flows fast and ebbs, and he, even he, Must leave the wilderness, the wood-haunts wild Soon shall the cyclone of Humanity Tearing through Earth suck up this little child And lo, as he grew ugly, gaunt, What worlds came near to let him scan! Beneath the sun, 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 brainHe crowned it on the day when piteous Booth Sent a whole land to weeping with world pain— When a black cloud blotted the sun And men stopped in the streets to sob, 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, With love more eloquent Than his own words-with Love that in real deeds 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 Flaming a faith across the dying Earth, 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- As mothers and fathers of our own Lincoln-child Make us more wise, more true, more strong, more mild, That we may day by day 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, 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 whose toil is done One with God's Law above: Work wrought through Love! NIGHT NOTE A little moon was restless in Eternity And, shivering beneath the stars, Dropped in the hiding arms of the western hill. |