ABRAHAM LINCOLN
DIED 15TH APRIL 1865

One more of the great ones gone but not
As though he succumbed unto death at length
He died by the stroke of the traitor’s hand
When his sun was in full meridian strength.

And the nations weep; and the people’s tears
Are fall ing for one who was great and good,
For one who guided the ship of state
To a haven of peace through a sea of blood.

He held a place in a critical time,
With the world to on-look, and to note and tell;
But he spurned the wrong, and he did the right,
And he passed the ordeal, and passed it well.

And now, when the streaks of a golden dawn
Had purpled the east of a land’s desires,
The assassin steps in and the curtain falls
And the martyred Lincoln expires.

Is dead! and we now can discern his worth,
Which the lead of the murderer couldn’t kill;
The soul philanthropic, honest, large,
And the heart that was proud, to be humble still.

He studied the passions and minds of men,
And wept with sorrow and soothed with pain,
And the widow’s tear and the mother’s cry
He stayed and comforted over again.

And he looked at the stubborn, hunted foe,
Foe to himself and the nation’s call,
And he saw the temptations was very great,
And he felt in his soul he forgave them all.

Mercy, not sacrifice, had he lived
Where now will his foes find such a friend?
And the bloody remembrance may flame the breast
And deaden the right, and God knows the end.

And this is the man that the world has lost!
And weeps its tears o’er his honoured dust;
God pity the mourner who feels the stroke,
And God will pity, and will be just.

S.F.G. (Samuel Fee Given)
Cullybackey, May 1865