Abraham Lincoln: Closet Poet

I've always loved Abraham Lincoln. Like...really. O_O I am so far beyond obsessed that I've decided to name my future son Abraham. Yes. Its gone that far. (Although another LEP member, Miriam Bukhsh, has agreed to bring the awesome top hat for my son to wear. :D) But I think he's AMAZING! He's always ranked as one of the three most influential and popular presidents- and he's on Mt. Rushmore! Getting your face carved into stone? That says it all. :|

But Lincoln's life was full of struggles and disappointments, his father lost all his property in court cases and it eventually led to Lincoln growing up in a one-room log cabin. Due to their unfortunate financial situation, Lincoln's family was constantly moving. His mother died when Lincoln was 9, so his older sister took care of him until his father remarried. However, his older sister then died after giving birth to a stillborn son. :(  Later on, he would face tragedy after tragedy in regards to his own children: Edward Baker Lincoln died of tuberculosis when he was four, William Wallace Lincoln died of typhoid fever when he was twelve, and Thomas Lincoln died of heart failure at the age of 18. Robert Todd Lincoln is the only son to have made it to adulthood and eventually became Secretary of War. He carried the burden of taking care of his mother after his father's assassination, and finally admitted her to a mental hospital when her condition became too terrible to handle.

Despite all of this, Abraham Lincoln led the country through a Civil War, ended slavery, and delivered the Gettysburg Address, which is quoted as one of the most well-known speeches in United States history. BUT did you also know that he wrote poetry? :D Yes he did! Lincoln wrote short pieces whenever he was in a "poetizing mood". He was particularly fond of his childhood home and wrote a really beautiful piece when he went to visit it again years later:

My Childhood Home I See Again
Abraham Lincoln

My childhood's home I see again
And sadden with the view,
And still, as memory crowds my brain
There's pleasure in it too.

O Memory! Thou midway world
'Twixt earth and paradise
Where things decayed and loved ones lost
In dreamy shadows rise

And, freed from all that's earthly vile
Seem hallowed, pure and bright
Like scenes in some enchanted isle
All bathed in liquid light

As dusky mountains please the eye
When twilight chases day
As bugle-tones, that passing by
In distance die away

As leaving some grand waterfall
We, lingering, list its roar
So memory will hallow all
We've known, but  know no more

Near twenty years have passed away

Since here I bid farewell

To woods and fields, and scenes of play,

And playmates loved so well.

Where many were, but few remain

Of old familiar things;

But seeing them, to mind again

The lost and absent brings.

The friends I left that parting day,

How changed, as time has sped!

Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray,

And half of all are dead.

I hear the loved survivors tell

How nought from death could save,

Till every sound appears a knell,

And every spot a grave.

I range the fields with pensive tread,

And pace the hollow rooms,

And feel (companion of the dead)

I'm living in the tombs.

WOW! :D And just when I thought the guy couldn't possibly get any more amazing! Who else is going to see BOTH of the Abraham Lincoln movies coming out this year after reading this? ;) I AM!

The LEP hearts you, Mr. Lincoln. :)

-Myra Khan
Princess of Rhymes

P.S. Some fun random facts: -Abraham Lincoln stood at 6'4" (our country's tallest president!) and and wore a stove-pipe hat (that he used to store letters and important documents in) that was about another twelve inches.
- Lincoln has no living heirs.
-Lincoln wrote his own speeches
-He loved gadgets! He is the only president to ever hold a patent. He issued one for "a device for buoying vessels over shoals"
-He's super cool.

P.P.S. Sorry for the weird formatting guys! I tried for a billion hours to change it, it insists on staying weird for some reason :/