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Show Ir ; : , , Lincoln's Favorite Poem i . "OH. WHY SHOULD THI SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD?" Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud t Like a swift flitting meteor, a fast flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He pauaeth from life to his rest in the grave. The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around, and together be laid ; As the young and the old, the low and the high, Shall crumble to dust and together shall lie. So the multitude goes, like the flower or weed, That withers away to let others succeed ; So the multitude comes, even those we behold, To repeat every tale that has often been told. For we are the same thing our fathers have been; We see the same sights our fathexs have seen ; We drink the same stream, we feel the same sun, And run the same course our fathers have run. The thoughts we are thinking our fathers did think; From the death we are ahrinking our fathers did shrink ; To the life we are clinging our fathers did cling. But it speeds from us all like the bird on the wing. Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, Are mingled together in sunshine and rain: And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge. Still follow eaeh other like surge upon surge. I Tis the wink of an e.ve 'tis the draught of a I breath Krom the blossom of health to the paleness of . death. From the gilded salon to the bier and the shroud ; Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud T William Knox (17o9-18ii). |