Mr. Lincoln's Favorite Poem: "Mortality"
New York Tribune, January 25, 1867

GATH - Mr. Lincoln's Favorite Poem (originally published by GATH in the New York Tribune, and later reprinted in "The Real Life of Abraham Lincoln: A Talk with Mr. Herndon - His Late Law Partner", 1867)

As is well known to many persons, the exquisitely beautiful poem entitled "Mortality" was an especial favorite with our late President (Lincoln), but it is not so generally understood that the poem was written by a young Scotsman, who died at age thirty-seven - that age so fatal to Burns, Byron, Motherwell, and so many other children of song. One evening in December 1863, Mr. Lincoln repeated this poem to Col. J.G. Wilson, then in Washington, when the later said, "Mr. President, you have omitted a portion of it." "What! Is there more of it?" responded Mr. Lincoln, with much eagerness as did the ragged backwoodsman in the story of the Arkansas Traveler. "Yes sir, two other stanzas," and he there upon repeated them to the great delight of the President. "Can you tell me who wrote it?" asked Mr. Lincoln, "for I can't find out. Some of the papers have attributed it to me." "It was written," replied the Colonel, "by William Knox, a Scottish poet of considerable talent who died in Edinburgh in 1825. He published several volumes of glorious memory and was well known to Sir Walter Scott and to many other of literary magnates of that day."

As the poem has already appeared incomplete in various journals, we append in full:

"MORTALITY"

Oh! Why should the spirit of mortal be proud?,
Like a swift, fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightening, a break of the wave,
He passeth 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;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall molder to dust and together shall lie.

The infant and mother attended and loved;
The mother that infant's affection proved;
The husband that mother and infant who blessed-
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure - her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those that beloved her and praised,
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn;
The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave,
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.

The saint that enjoyed the communion of heaven;
The sinner that dared to remain unforgiven;
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes, like the flower or the 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 our 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 would think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging they also would cling;
But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but the strong we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from that slumber will come;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died, ay! They died: we things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the things they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yes! Hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge after 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 a mortal be proud?

- William Knox