Volume 1 — FAVORITE POEMS
Reading edition
OF
ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
However practical a man may be—however deeply he may be engrossed in pursuits that would seem to be almost as barren of poetry as a city pavement is of verdure—there is some chord in his heart that the right poet may strike and fill his soul with melody. There is scarcely a man in any walk of life who has not at some time in his life come upon a poem which seemed to voice his own ideals.
In the private office of President Roosevelt, in the White House, hangs, in the handwriting of its author, a poem by the late Senator John J. Ingalls, of Kansas. The title of the poem is "Opportunity." This framed manuscript and a portrait of President Lincoln are the only objects on the walls of the apartment.
In singular contrast with the favorite poem of Theodore Roosevelt is that of Abraham Lincoln—"Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?" by William Knox. Lincoln cut the poem from a newspaper and committed it to memory. Several years later he said to a friend: "I would give a great deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain." Subsequently he learned that the author was Knox, a Scottish poet, who died in 1825.
OPPORTUNITY.
By the late Senator John J. Ingalls.
Master of human destinies am I! Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait, Cities and fields I walk: I penetrate Deserts and seas remote, and passing by Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late I knock unbidden, once, at every gate! If feasting, rise; if sleeping, wake before I turn away. It is the hour of fate, And they who follow me reach every state Mortals desire, and conquer every foe Save death. But those who doubt or hesitate, Condemned to failure, penury and woe, Seek me in vain and ceaselessly implore; I answer not, and I return—no more.
Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?
BY WILLIAM KNOX.
Oh, 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 passes 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; And the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall molder to dust and together shall lie. The infant a mother attended and loved, The mother that infant's affection who proved, The husband that mother and infant who blessed, Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest. The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure—her triumphs are by; And the memory of those who loved her and praised, Are alike from the minds of the living erased. The hand 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. The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven, The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven, The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just, Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust. So the multitude goes, like the flower and the weed, That wither 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 that our fathers have been; We see the same sights that our fathers have seen, We drink the same stream, and view the same sun, And run the same course that our fathers have run. They loved, but their 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 voice of their gladness is dumb. They died—aye, they died; and we things that are now, Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow, Who make in their dwelling a transient abode, Meet the changes 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, the song and the dirge, Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. 'Tis the twink of an eye, 'tis the draft of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud— Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?