When, scornful of a nation's rest,
The angry horns of Discord blew
There came a giant from the West,
And found a giant's work to do.
He saw, in sorrow--and in wrath--
A mighty empire in its strait,
Torn like a planet in its path
To warring hemisphere of hate.
Between the thunder-clouds he stood;
He harked to Ruin's battle-drum,
And cried in patriot hardihood,
"Why do I wait? My hour has come!
"Was it my fate, my lot, my woe
To be the Ruler of the land,
Nor own my oath that long ago
I swore upon this heart and hand?
"That vow, like barb from bowman's string,
Shall pierce sedition's secret plea:
God grant the bloodless blow shall sting
Till brother's quarrels cease to be!
"Should once the sudden wound provoke
New strife in anger's zone
The clash may be the penal stroke
That makes a new Republic one."
He wrote his Message--clear as light,
And bolder than a king's command--
And when war's whirlwinds spent their might
There was no bondman in the land.
[Illustration: PRESIDENT LINCOLN
Photograph by Alexander Gardner, Washington, D. C.,
January 24, 1863]