LINCOLN

Two hundred years ago this week, *

God brought forth on this continent,

A Kentucky boy poor but not weak,

This capable but country lad,

Had a loving mom, a working dad.

                – eab, 2/9/09

* Note this was penned a year ago.

Read Full Post »

Oliver W Holmes – birth, 8/29/1809

O Love divine, that stooped to share
Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear!
On Thee we cast each earthborn care;
We smile at pain while Thou art near.

Though long the weary way we tread,
And sorrow crown each lingering year,
No path we shun, no darkness dread,
Our hearts still whispering, “Thou art near!”

When drooping pleasure turns to grief,
And trembling faith is changed to fear,
The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf,
Shall softly tell us Thou art near!

On Thee we fling our burdening woe,
O Love divine, forever dear!
Content to suffer while we know,
Living and dying, Thou art near!

Oliver W Holmes was born this date, 8/29/1809, Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts.  He was professor of ana­to­my and phys­i­ol­o­gy and later dean at Har­vard Med­i­cal School.  He was a poet – wrote “Old Ironsides” and “The Chambered Nautilus.”  (His son Ol­i­ver Wen­dell Holmes, Jr. became Su­preme Court Jus­tice.)  Holmes died 10/7/1894, Bos­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts.

Read Full Post »

Alfred Lord Tennyson – birth, Aug 6, 1809

“More things are wrought by pray­er
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life with­in the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of pray­er
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson was born this date, 8/6/1809 at Lincolnshire, England.  When reportedly asked what Jesus meant to him, he replied, “What the sun is to the flower, Jesus Christ is to my soul.”  

 He wrote the well known poems “Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New” “Strong Son of God, Immortal Love” “Break, Break, Break” “In Memoriam” and “Crossing the Bar” which, he requested, be always printed last in any collection of his poems.  

Tennyson, who was Poet Laureate, died 10/6/1892 at Ald­worth House, near Has­le­mere, Sur­rey, Eng­land.

Read Full Post »

Abraham Lincoln – birth, Feb. 12, 1809

“Gettysburg  Address”

 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

 

But in a larger sense we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.

 

It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

 

Abraham Lincoln was born this date (2/12/1809) near Hodgenville, Kentucky.  His “Gettysburg Address” was his literary masterpiece.  Not only was it his – it is the greatest piece of literature every produced by an American President.  

Read Full Post »

LINCOLN was born 200 years ago, this Thursday!

lincoln

A. Lincoln was his name.

Honest Abe was always the same.

He tried to keep US united,

After rebels war ignited,

His death was the nation’s great shame. – eab, 10/28/07

Abraham Lincoln was born 200 years ago – Feb 12, 1809.  Are we forgetting our history?

Read Full Post »