ld
And the enduring strength of steel.

So now he dominates our thought.
This humble great man holds us thus
Because of all he dreamed and wrought;
Because he is akin to us.
He held his patient trust in truth
While God was working out His plan,
And they that were his foes, forsooth,
Came to pay tribute to the Man.

Not as the great who grow more great
Until they have a mystic fame--
No stroke of fortune nor of fate
Gave Lincoln his undying name.
A common man, earth-bred, earth-born,
One of the breed who work and wait--
His was a soul above all scorn.
His was a heart above all hate.

[Illustration: PRESIDENT LINCOLN AT ANTIETAM

Photograph taken on the battlefield, September, 1862,
with General McClellan and Allen Pinkerton]

Edwin Arlington Robinson, born at Head Tide, Maine, December 22, 1869.
Educated at Gardiner, Maine, and Harvard University, 1891-3. Member
National Institute Arts and Letters. Author: _The Torrent_ and _The
Night Before_, 1896; _The Children of the Night_, 1897, 1905; _Captain
Craig_ (poems), _The Town Down the River_, 1910.

THE MASTER

(LINCOLN)

A flying word from here and there
Had sown the name at which we sneered,
But soon the name was everywhere,
To be reviled and then revered:
A presence to be loved and feared,
We cannot hide it, or deny
That we, the gentlemen who jeered,
May be forgotten by and by.

He came when days were perilous
And hearts of men were sore beguiled;
And having made his note of us,
He pondered and was reconciled.
Was ever master yet so mild
As he, and so untamable?
We doubted, even when he smiled,
Not knowing what he knew so well.

He knew that undeceiving fate
Would shame us whom he served unsought;
He knew that he must wince and wait--