| CLEARING in the forest, | |
| In the wild Kentucky forest, | |
| And the stars, wintry stars strewn above! | |
| O Night that is the starriest | |
| Since Earth began to roll— | 5 |
| For a Soul | |
| Is born out of Love! | |
| Mother love, father love, love of Eternal God— | |
| Stars have pushed aside to let him through— | |
| Through heaven's sun-sown deeps | 10 |
| One sparkling ray of God | |
| Strikes the clod— | |
| (And while an angel-host through wood and clearing sweeps!) | |
| Born in the wild | |
| The Child— | 15 |
| Naked, ruddy, new, | |
| Wakes with the piteous human cry and at the mother-heart sleeps. | |
| |
| To the mother wild berries and honey, | |
| To the father awe without end, | |
| To the child a swaddling of flannel— | 20 |
| And a dawn rolls sharp and sunny | |
| And the skies of winter bend | |
| To see the first sweet word penned | |
| In the godliest human annal. | |
| |
| Frail Mother of the Wilderness— | 25 |
| How strange the world shines in | |
| And the cabin becomes chapel | |
| And the baby lies secure— | |
| Sweet Mother of the Wilderness, | |
| New worlds for you begin, | 30 |
| You have tasted of the apple | |
| That giveth wisdom sure.... | |
| |
| Soon in the wide wilderness, | |
| On a branch blown over a creek, | |
| Up a trail of the wild coon, | 35 |
| In a lair of the wild bee, | |
| The rugged boy, by danger's stress, | |
| Learnt the speech the wild things speak, | |
| Learnt the Earth's eternal tune | |
| Of strife-engendered harmony— | 40 |
| Went to school where Life itself was master, | |
| Went to church where Earth was minister— | |
| And in Danger and Disaster | |
| Felt his future manhood stir! | |
| |
| All about him lay the land, | 45 |
| Eastern cities, Western prairie, | |
| Wild, immeasurable, grand; | |
| But he was lost where blossomy boughs make airy | |
| Bowers in the forest, and the sand | |
| Makes brook-water a clear mirror that gives back | 50 |
| Green branches and trunks black | |
| And clouds across the heavens lightly fanned. | |
| |
| Yet all the Future dreams, eager to waken, | |
| Within that woodland soul— | |
| And the bough of boy has only to be shaken | 55 |
| That the fruit drop whereby this Earth shall roll | |
| A little nearer God than ever before. | |
| Little recks he of war, | |
| Of national millions waiting on his word— | |
| Dreams still the Event unstirred | 60 |
| In the heart of the boy, the little babe of the wild— | |
| But the years hurry and the tide of the sea | |
| Of Time flows fast and ebbs, and he, even he, | |
| Must leave the wilderness, the wood-haunts wild— | |
| Soon shall the cyclone of Humanity | 65 |
| Tearing through Earth suck up this little child | |
| And whirl him to the top, where he shall be | |
| Riding the storm-column in the lightning-stroke, | |
| Calm at the peak, while down below worlds rage, | |
| And Earth goes out in blood and battle-smoke, | 70 |
| And leaves him with the sun—an epoch and an age! | |
| |
| And lo, as he grew ugly, gaunt, | |
| And gnarled his way into a man, | |
| What wisdom came to feed his want, | |
| What worlds came near to let him scan! | 75 |
| And as he fathomed through and through | |
| Our dark and sorry human scheme, | |
| He knew what Shakespeare never knew, | |
| What Dante never dared to dream— | |
| That Men are one | 80 |
| Beneath the sun, | |
| And before God are equal souls— | |
| This truth was his, | |
| And this it is | |
| That round him such a glory rolls— | 85 |
| For not alone he knew it as a truth, | |
| He made it of his blood, and of his brain— | |
| He crowned it on the day when piteous Booth | |
| Sent a whole land to weeping with world-pain— | |
| When a black cloud blotted the sun | 90 |
| And men stopped in the streets to sob, | |
| To think Old Abe was dead. | |
| Dead, and the day's work still undone, | |
| Dead, and war's ruining heart athrob, | |
| And earth with fields of carnage freshly spread— | 95 |
| Millions died fighting, | |
| But in this man we mourned | |
| Those millions, and one other— | |
| And the States to-day uniting, | |
| North and South, | 100 |
| East and West, | |
| Speak with a people's mouth | |
| A rhapsody of rest | |
| To him our beloved best, | |
| Our big, gaunt, homely brother— | 105 |
| Our huge Atlantic coast-storm in a shawl, | |
| Our cyclone in a smile—our President, | |
| Who knew and loved us all | |
| With love more eloquent | |
| Than his own words—with Love that in real deeds was spent.... | 110 |
| |
| Oh, to pour love through deeds— | |
| To be as Lincoln was!— | |
| That all the land might fill its daily needs | |
| Glorified by a human Cause! | |
| Then were America a vast World-Torch | 115 |
| Flaming a faith across the dying Earth, | |
| Proclaiming from the Atlantic's rocky porch, | |
| That a New World was struggling at the birth! | |
| |
| O living God, O Thou who living art, | |
| And real, and near, draw, as at that babe's birth, | 120 |
| Into our souls and sanctify our Earth— | |
| Let down Thy strength that we endure | |
| Mighty and pure | |
| As mothers and fathers of our own Lincoln-child— | |
| Make us more wise, more true, more strong, more mild, | 125 |
| That we may day by day | |
| Rear this wild blossom through its soft petals of clay; | |
| That hour by hour | |
| We may endow it with more human power | |
| Than is our own— | 130 |
| That it may reach the goal | |
| Our Lincoln long has shown! | |
| O Child, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, | |
| Soul torn from out our Soul! | |
| May you be great, and pure, and beautiful— | 135 |
| A Soul to search this world | |
| To be a father, brother, comrade, son, | |
| A toiler powerful; | |
| A man whose toil is done | |
| One with God's Law above: | 140 |
| Work wrought through Love! | |
