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Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off, etc.
Wednesday, April 19, was:--
The day of President Lincoln's funeral.
A sad, disconnected day. I could not work, but strolled around to see the houses, variously draped in black and white.
Went to Bartol's church, not knowing of a service at our own. Bartol's remarks were tender and pathetic.
I was pleased to have heard them.
Wrote some verses about the President — pretty good, perhaps,--scratching the last nearly in the dark, just before bedtime.
This is the poem called “Parricide.”
It begins:--
O'er the warrior gauntlet grim
Late the silken glove we drew,
Bade the watch-fires slacken dim
In the dawn's auspicious hue.
Staid the armed heel;
Still the clanging steel;
Joys unwonted thrilled the silence through.
On April 27 she “heard of
Wilkes Booth's deathshot on refusing to give himself up — the best thing that could have happened to himself and his family” ; and wrote a second poem entitled “Pardon,” embodying her second and permanent thought on the subject: Pains the sharp sentence the heart in whose wrath it was uttered,
Now thou art cold;
Vengeance, the headlong, and Justice, with purpose close mut-
tered,
Loosen their hold, etc.
Brief entries note the closing events of the war.
