The Abraham Lincoln is a biographical book. "Confusion now hath made his masterpiece! Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence The life o' the building. "Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight With a new Gorgon: Do not bid me speak; See, and then speak yourselves. Awake! awake! Ring the alarum bell: Murder! and treason! "Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit, And look on death itself! up, up, and see The great doom's image! "Our royal master's murdered! "Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had lived a blessed time; for from this instant There's nothing serious in mortality: All is but toys: renown and grace is dead; The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of. "After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well; Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, Can touch him further". Not as when some great Captain falls In battle, where his Country calls, Beyond the struggling lines That push his dread designs. To doom, by some stray ball struck dead: Or, in the last charge, at the head Of his determined men, Who must be victors then! Nor as when sink the civic Great, The safer pillars of the State, Whose calm, mature, wise words Suppress the need of swords.
