LOOK on this cast, and know the hand
That bore a nation in its hold:
From this mute witness
understand
What Lincoln was,�how large of mould
The man who sped the woodman's team,
And deepest sunk the
ploughman's share,
And pushed the laden raft astream,
Of fate before him unaware.
This was the hand that
knew to swing
The axe�since thus would Freedom train
Her son�and made the forest ring,
And drove the wedge,
and toiled amain.
Firm hand, that loftier office
took,
A conscious leader's will obeyed,
And, when men
sought his word and look,
With steadfast might the
gathering swayed.
No courtier's, toying with a sword,
Nor minstrel's, laid across a lute;
A chief's, uplifted
to the Lord
When all the kings of earth were mute!
The hand of Anak, sinewed strong,
The fingers that on
greatness clutch;
Yet, lo! the marks their lines along
Of one who strove and suffered much.
For here in
knotted cord and vein
I trace the varying chart of years;
I know the troubled heart, the strain,
The weight of
Atlas�and the tears.
Again I see the patient brow
That palm erewhile was wont to press;
And now 't is
furrowed deep, and now
Made smooth with hope and
tenderness.
For something of a formless grace
This
moulded outline plays about;
A pitying flame, beyond our
trace,
Breathes like a spirit, in and out,
The
love that cast an aureole
Round one who, longer to
endure,
Called mirth to ease his ceaseless dole,
Yet
kept his nobler purpose sure.
Lo, as I gaze, the
statured man,
Built up from yon large hand, appears:
A
type that Nature wills to plan
But once in all a people's
years.
What better than this voiceless cast
To
tell of such a one as he,
Since through its living
semblance passed
The thought that bade a race be free! |
