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Show j LINCOLN'S FAVORITE POEM. The tributes to the memory of Lin-j Lin-j coin would be incomplete without a reproduction of his favorite poem, as follows: 4 Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud, A fla.sh of the lightning, a break of the wave, Ho passeth from life to his rcpt In the grave. The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around and together be laid: And the young men and the. old, and the low and the high Shall moulder to du6t and together shall He. i The Infant and mother attended and loved; The mother that Infant's affection who proved; The husband that mother and inrant who blessed, Each all are away to their dwellings to rest. The hand of the king that the sceptri hath borne; The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn; The eye of the sage and the heart of the bravo, ' Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap; The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep; The beggar who wandered In search of his bread. Have faded away like the grass that we tread. So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed That withers away to lot others succeed; So the multitude comes, even those we behold, To repeat every tale that has often been told. 1 For we are the same out fathers have been; We see the same sights our fathers have seen; We drink the same stream and view 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 shrinking our fathers did shrink; To the life we are clinging they also would cling; But it speeds from us all, like a bird on the wing. 1 They loved, but the story we cannot unfold; They scorned, but the heart of the haughty Is cold; They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come; They Joyed, but the tongue of their gladnes3 Is dumb. i' They died, aye! they died, we things that are now, That talk on the turf that lies over their brow. And make in their dwellings a trans-lent trans-lent abode. Meet the things that they met on the pilgrimage road. Yea! hope aud despondency, pleasure and pain, We mingle together in sunshine and rain; And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge, Still follow each other, like Mirge upon surge. 'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath. From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud. Oh, why should the spirit of mortal i be proud? |