Francis B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House, page 60

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19th-Century American

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The sculptor was using for a studio the office of the Solicitor of the Treasury Department, an irregular room, packed nearly full of law books. Seating myself, I believe, upon a pile of these at Mr. Lincoln's feet, he kindly repeated the lines, which I wrote down, one by one, as they fell from his lips:--

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?¹

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,
He 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;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder 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 blest,--
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 sceptre hath borne,
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn,
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

1 the authorship of this poem has been made known since this publication in the evening post. it was written by William Knox, a young Scotchman, a contemporary of sir Walter Scott. He died in Edinburgh, in 1825, at the age of 36.

the two verses in brackets were not repeated by Mr. Lincoln, but belong to the original poem.

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Francis B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House

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Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?1

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?¹