Abe Lincoln and Poetry

Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all,
That which is gendered in the wilderness
From lonely prairies and God's tenderness.
Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream,
Born where the ghosts of buffaloes still dream,
Whose spirit hoof-beats storm above his grave,
Above that breast of earth and prairie-fire-
Fire that freed the slave.

Another Illinois poet, Carl Sandburg, whose poems about Chicago gained him much acclaim, paid high tribute to Lincoln not only in poems ("Cool Tombs," "The People, Yes," and "Knucks"), but Sandburg also wrote a six-volume biography of Lincoln: the first two volumes called Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years appeared in 1926, and remaining four volumes titled Abraham Lincoln: The War Years appeared in 1939. In 1940, Sandburg was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the four-volume Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

Additional poets who have chosen Lincoln for a subject are William Cullen Bryant, James Russell Lowell, Edwin Markham, Edgar Lee Masters, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Witter Bynner, and many others. And it is certainly fitting that a president who loved poetry so much and whose writing exhibited such poetic qualities and whose mind was very much a poet has been so attractive to poets down through the decades.

Without a doubt the history of the United States has been deeply affected by Abraham Lincoln's presidency. His statesmanship steered America in a direction toward strength and peace. His life is certainly one to emulate. And the poets have not failed to notice.

Reference:
Abraham Lincoln's Favorite Poem
Poetry Written by Abraham Lincoln
"O Captain! My Captain!"
"When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd"
"Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight"
Poems about Lincoln

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Books by Linda Sue Grimes:
Jiggery-Jee's Eden Valley Stories
Singing in the Silence: Poems of Faith

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