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ABRAHAM LINCOLN—Fourteenth President of the United States; born in Hardin County, Ky., February 12, 1809; assassinated in Ford’s Theater, April 16, 1865.

JEFFERSON DAVIS—First and last President of the Southern Confederacy; born in Christian County, Ky., June 3, 1808; died in New Orleans, December 6, 1889.

The sky of the Southland with grief is o’ercast;

Bitter tears down the cheeks of the brave trickle fast;

The moss-streamered oaks of Beauvoir bow their head—

Their Master is fallen, their Chieftain is dead.

Wake, soldier, who liest outstretched on thy bier:

Does the warwhoop of Black Hawk not startle thy ear?

Seest thou not the long Mexican lancers’ array

At dark Buena Vista rush fierce to the fray?

Hapless Mexican Cavalry! great was your scath

As you fearlessly charged down that Angel of Death.

The manes of the chargers like meteors streamed,

Like rainbows far-flashing the gay pennons gleamed;

Like lightning from Heaven Davis brandished his sword

And fierce was the volley his riflemen poured;

They reel in their saddles, they topple and fall,

The flag of the cavalcade turns to a pall,

Its ghostly Commander is the skeleton Death—

The fair rose of Mexico shrinks in his breath.

They halt—they retreat—in wild tumult they run,

The eagle soars victor—Buena Vista is won.

Hearken, O spangled Cavaliers, to that dread warning cry

Which like the trump of Judgment is sounding from the sky—

“Remember cruel Alamo’s foul massacre and die!”

Lo her avengers, Taylor, Davis, Hardin, McKee, and Clay!

Abundant sacrifice went up in smoke of battle gray,

So were thy Manes appeased, brave Crockett, on that day,

Thy phantom sped from Alamo to cheer that bloody fray.

Our troops on that field by their valor and scars

Added stars to our flag’s constellation of stars,

And Buena Vista’s immaculate name

Like a beacon-fire burns in the temple of fame.

Weep, daughters of Mexico, for lover and spouse,

Hang crepe on the door of each desolate house,

Long, long shall the maidens of Anahuac mourn

For their fallen defenders who shall never return.

Once, in Senate encounter, in battle’s fierce brunt,

Thy plume, like Navarre’s, streamed full high in the front.

Thou wast once, like Scotch Bruce, of inflexible will,

Unyielding, though conquered, and resolute still.

In field or in council, with sword, tongue or pen,

The molder of ideas, the leader of men.

Clay—Webster—Oh, Chief, are thy pulses unstirred

When the mighty debate in the Senate is heard?

Hark, Sumter’s loud tocsin! Saw the world e’er the like?

For Freedom and Union and Southland they strike.

Grant, Meade, Lee and Thomas like Titans engage,

And the Lost Cause departs like a ghost from the stage.

’Tis past, like a dream of the dawning in air,

For thee, the world’s pageant of Vanity Fair.

All faded—those phantoms and dreams of the past,

And crepe ties the flag as it falls to the mast.

The dirge wails its sorrow to dead ears in vain;

The pallbearers’ flag is the flag of the train,

The traveler’s baggage lies all in one chest,

Whose check is a coffin plate lettered “At Rest.”

And Metairie’s vault opes its dark, narrow berth

For the cold, pallid earth which returns to the earth.

As I rode o’er the mountain I saw not how high

Its pine-covered summit ascended the sky.

’Twas a mere undulation that rose from the plain—

But, as journeying on, I beheld it again,

The veil of Omnipotence spread like a shroud

On its brow, that looked down on the loftiest cloud.

So our lives were too near to those lives which expired

When the battle of freedom our continent fired.

To measure their valor and virtue aright—

Our vision is dim when too close to the light.

Thou, Lincoln, sad martyr, just, generous, brave;

A hero of heroes Omnipotence gave

To mortals in molding thy gaunt, rugged face;

Like Cromwell, no smooth dilettante in grace;

But counting all power, glory, life itself, naught,

Till the duty assigned thee by Heaven was wrought.

O voice of humanity whose exquisite tone

Like the moan of the sea breathed a sadness its own—

As the sea mourns the infinite dead ’neath its waves,

So mourned his great soul for war’s infinite graves—

How oft did the widow and orphan rejoice

In the counsel and sympathy toned in that voice;

Where sorrow abounded did his love more abound,

Like the hand of a woman who nurses a wound,

Like the lullaby sung to a babe at the breast

Till singer and sufferer sink to sweet rest;

It cheered the bruised hearts of the children of toil

Like the summer-night-dew which refreshes the soil;

Like the Lamb of Redemption he went to the cross

And our infinite gain was secured by his loss.

No vision of conquest could lead him astray

No sectional bias waved false lights in his way.

Stem duty, as he saw it, confronted his eyes;

And the future passed judgment at its solemn assize:

“The Union which Washington won by his sword

“I have sworn to preserve, ’tis my vow to the Lord.

“Should the temple he built by my treachery burn,

“My name would all ages indignantly spurn,

“My honor be scorned, my oath be forsworn,

“And my name from the roster of Patriots be torn.

“This Union so fair asunder to rend,

“No patriot has sworn—I’ve an oath to defend,

“‘The Last Sigh of the Moor’ is a voice not in vain,

“For the mother who bore him scorned Boabdil of Spain.”

The ages have brought forth no kinder than he

His soul, like the broad, irresistible sea,

Was a blending of majesty, sweetness and grace,

Himself he forgot in his love for his race.

The truths which he uttered all time will applaud,

For his lips caught their flame from the altar of God.

Who can love in this life, and yet truly be wise?

Who can hate, and still see with unprejudiced eyes?

Our passions envelop our visions with mist;

Their whirlwinds transport us wherever they list.

To tenderly love and judge all hearts aright

Belongs to One only—the Father of Light,

Who sits on the throne with white radiance burning—

In whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning.

Fallen, fallen, is the storm-shattered oak of the South;

Fallen, fallen, is the strong, stately pine of the North;

One combatant loses, another one wins—

God have mercy on both and forgive them their sins.

And if a man conquer, or if he should lose,

’Tis naught if the Great Judge His mercy refuse.

And now, all unheeding earth’s praises or blame,

Thy two sons, Kentucky, repose in their fame.

The victor struck down while the jubilant cheer

Of honor and victory rang in his ear;

The vanquished, who suffered in silence his lot,

When the empire and glory he dreamed of were not.

New Orleans and Springfield have taken to rest

Two children, Kentucky, who nursed at thy breast.

Oh, Hardin and Christian, the homes of the great,

Forgetfulness veils, through the satire of fate,

While fame blazons far to the ends of the earth

The log huts which gave to your progeny birth.

The leaders of millions lie helpless and lone

As the soldiers who perished unnoticed, unknown.

Take them tenderly, dear Mother Earth, to thy breast,

To sleep in their “windowless palace of rest.”

I hear, as I stand, pressed with grief, by your graves,

A murmur, soft, strong, as of waves upon waves;

And memory’s harp, with its mystical strings,

Recalls, with the sweeping of infinite wings,

How precious that flag by our fathers unfurled—

White flower of charity, light of the world,

Float ever, proud banner of freedom sublime,

Till the judgment’s last trump sounds the ending of time.

The Christmas Eve bells were all ringing aloud,

When I dreamed that I saw on God’s bow in the cloud—

Its red like the rose dawn of Easter’s bright day;

Its blue like the love that abideth for aye;

Its gold the reflection of Paradise street;

Its white the effulgence of God’s mercy seat—

An Angel, calm, radiant, of presence august,

The great, golden balance of mercy adjust;

And millions of martyrs on battlefields slain,

Like the voice of the ocean, repeated the strain:

“O, States of the Union, all warfare shall cease;

Christ lifts o’er the nation the banner of peace,

As the prism-banded bow of the sky stanched the flood

Its earth-child, the flag, ends the deluge of blood.

War’s death-dealing cloud has forever rolled by,

And Peace, with her olive branch, smiles from the sky

Forever is silenced dissension’s wild roar;

The demon of hate rends the Union no more.”

And, lo! the bells answered from valley and hill:

“Peace, peace upon earth, to all men of good-will!”