The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1883-06-15
POETRY.
LINCOLN.

At the recent reunion of the Army of the
Potomac in Washington, at the conclusion
| of Judge Edmunds' address the Marine band
rendered the Star spangled Banner" and
| then the president introduced George Alfred
Townsend who with much feeling delivered
| the following poem, the reading of which
was frequently interrupted by applause
THE POEM.
! Civil soldiers, reassembled by the river OF
your fame,
Ye who saved the virgin city, bathed in
Washington's clear name,
Which of all your past commanders doth this
day your memory haunt?
Scott, Mcdowell, Burnside, Hooker, Meade,
Mcclellan, Halleck, Grant?
There is one too little mentioned when your
proud reunions come,
And the thoughtful love of country dies upon
the sounding drum.
Let me call him in your muster; let me wake
him in your grief
Captain by the Constitution, Abram Lincoln
was ,our chief.
Ever nearest t" his person, ye were his de-
fense and shield,
He alone of your commanders died upon the
battl, field.
All your generals were his children, leaning
on his childish will,
And they all wer' filial mourners, round the
mighty tomb lie filled.
Tender as the heart of David his soft answers
now become,
When amid the cares of kingdoms rose and
fell some AbsaIom.
And his humor gilds his memory like light
within tent,
Or the sunken sun that fingers on the lofty
monument.
Like the slave that saw the sunrise with his
face toward the west,
As it flashed while vet twas hidden on n
slender steeple's crest,
So while victory turn-d her from him, ere
the dawn in welcome came,
On his pen Emancipation glittrred like an
altar flame.
Feeling for the doomed deserter, feeling for
the DRAFTED sire,
For the empty Northern hearthstone and the
Southern home afre,
Mercy kept him grim as Moloch all the future
babes to free,
And eternal peace to garner for the millions
yet to be.
Not soldier of the classics, he could see
through learned pretence:
Master of the greatest science, military COM
mon sense.
As he watched your marches, comrades,
hither, thither, wayward years,
On his map the roads you followed you can
trace them by his tears.
In the rear the people clamored; in the front
the generals missed;
In his inner councils harbored critic and an
tagonist.
But he ruled them by an instinct like the
queens among the bees,
With a health of soul that honeyed Publi-
cans and Pharisees.
Faint of fame we looked behind us for a chief
of higher tone,
While the voice that drowned the trumpets
was the echo of our own.
Ever thus, my old companions, genius has
us by the hand,
Walking on the tempest with us, every crisis
to command.
| Like the bugle blown at evening by some
homesick son of art,
Lincolns words unearthly quiver on the
universal heart.
Not an echo left of malice, scarce of triumph
| in the straiu,
| As when summer thunder murmurs in pa
thetic showers of rain.
Years forever consecrated, here he led where
duties be,
Never crying of the climate or the tolls mo-
notony.
Here his darling boy he buried, and the night
in vigil wept,
Like his Lord within the garden, when the
tired disciples slept.
How his call for men went ringing round the
| world, a mighty bell,
And the races Of creation came the proud
revolt to quell
Standing in the last reaction on the rock o
human rights,
Wan and mournful grew his features in the
fash of battle lights.
Once like Moses from the mountain looked
he on the realm he won,
When the slaves in burning Richmond knel
and thought him Washington;
Then an envious bravo snatched him from
/ III. tbaatar nf fhinus
To become a saint of nature in the pantheon
| Of kings.
Faded are the golden chevrons, vanished /.
the pride of war;
Mild in heaven his moral glory fingers like
the morning star,
And the freeman's zone of cotton his whit.
spirit seems to be,
And the insects in the harvest beat his ar
mics reveille.
All around him spoilers greedy, women vaiI
and honor spent,
Still his faith in human nature lived withou
Encouragement
For his country which could raise him bare
foot to the monarch height,
Could he mock her or his mother, though hel
| name she could not write?
Deep the wells of humble childhood, cool th,