He led off with the following new paragraph:
"Of Abraham Lincoln, bearing testimony twenty-five years after his
death--and of that death--I am now my friends before you. Few realize
the days, the great historic and esthetic personalities, with him in
the centre, we pass'd through. Abraham Lincoln, familiar, our own, an
Illinoisian, modern, yet tallying ancient Moses, Joshua, Ulysses, or
later Cromwell, and grander in some respects than any of them; Abraham
Lincoln, that makes the like of Homer, Plutarch, Shakspere, eligible
our day or any day. My subject this evening for forty or fifty
minutes' talk is the death of this man, and how that death will really
filter into America. I am not going to tell you anything new; and it
is doubtless nearly altogether because I ardently wish to commemorate
the hour and martyrdom and name I am here. Oft as the rolling years
bring back this hour, let it again, however briefly, be dwelt upon.
For my own part I hope and intend till my own dying day, whenever the
14th and 15th of April comes, to annually gather a few friends and
hold its tragic reminiscence. No narrow or sectional reminiscence. It
belongs to these States in their entirety--not the North only, but the
South--perhaps belongs most tenderly and devoutly to the South, of
all; for there really this man's birthstock; there and then his
antecedent stamp. Why should I not say that thence his manliest
traits, his universality, his canny, easy ways and words upon the
surface--his inflexible determination at heart? Have you ever
realized it, my friends, that Lincoln, though grafted on the West, is
essentially in personnel and character a Southern contribution?"
The most of the poet's address was devoted to the actual occurrences
and details of the murder.
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