O, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD? BY WILLIAM KNOX.
Reading edition
The following poem was a particular favorite with Abraham Lincoln. It was first shown to him when a young man by a friend, and afterwards he cut it from a newspaper and learned it by heart. He said to a friend: “I would give a great deal to know who wrote it, but have never been able to ascertain.” He did afterwards learn the name of the author.
William Knox was a Scottish poet who was born in 1789 at Firth and died in 1825 at Edinburgh. His “Lonely Hearth and Other Poems” was published in 1818, and “The Songs of Israel,” from which “O, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud” is taken, in 1824. Sir Walter Scott was an admirer of Knox’s poems, and befriended the author when his habits brought him into need.
O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around, and together be laid; As the young and the old, the low and the high, Shall crumble to dust and together shall lie.
The infant a mother attended and loved, The mother that infant’s affection who proved, The father that mother and infant who blest— Each, all, are away to that dwelling of rest.
The maid on whose brow, on whose cheek, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure—her triumphs are by; And alike from the minds of the living erased Are the memories of mortals who loved her and praised.
The head of the King, that the scepter hath borne; The brow of the priest, that the miter hath worn; The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave— Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.
The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap; The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep; The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread— Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed, That withers away to let others succeed; So the multitude comes, even those we behold, To repeat every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same our fathers have been; We see the same sights our fathers have seen; We drink the same stream, we see the same sun, And run the same course our fathers have run.
The thoughts we are thinking our fathers did think; From the death we are shrinking our fathers did shrink; To the life we are clinging our fathers did cling, But it speeds from us all like the bird on the wing.
They loved—but the story we cannot unfold; They scorned—but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved—but no wail from their slumbers will come; They joyed—but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
They died—ah! they died—we, things that are now, That walk on the turf that lies over their brow, And make in their dwelling a transient abode, Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, Are mingled together in sunshine and rain, And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge, Still follow each other like surge upon surge.
’Tis the wink of an eye; ’tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud; O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?