Like some harsh landscape all the summer's gold;
That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea
For storms to beat on; the lone agony
Those silent, patient lips too well foretold.
Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men
As might some prophet of the elder day--
Brooding above the tempest and the fray
With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken.
A power was his beyond the touch of art
Or armed strength--his pure and mighty heart.

[Illustration: THE HAND OF LINCOLN]

The Saturday after the nomination of Mr. Lincoln for President of the
United States, the Committee appointed to inform him of the said
nomination arrived in Springfield and performed this duty in the
evening at his home.

The cast of his hand was made the next morning by Mr. Leonard W. Volk.
While the sculptor was making the cast of his left hand, Lincoln
called his attention to a scar on his thumb. "You have heard me called
the 'rail-splitter' haven't you?" he said, "Well, I used to split
rails when I was a young man, and one day, while sharpening a wedge on
a log, the axe glanced and nearly took off my thumb."

Edmund Clarence Stedman was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on the 8th
of October, 1833. He entered Yale College at the age of sixteen and
distinguished himself in Greek and English Composition. He was the
editor of several papers in Connecticut and in 1856 removed to New
York City--a larger field for his literary abilities. He was a
contributor to _Vanity Fair_, _Putnam's Monthly_, _Harper's Magazine_
and other periodicals. His poems: _The Diamond Wedding_, _How Old John
Brown Took Harper's Ferry_, _The Ballad of Lager-Bier_, gave him some
reputation. He was war-correspondent for the _World_ during the early
campaigns of the Army of the Potomac from the Headquarters of General
Irwin McDowell and General B. McClellan. He died in 1908.

THE HAND OF LINCOLN

Look on this cast, and know the hand
That bore a nation in its hold;
From this mute witness understand
What Lincoln was--how large of mold.

The man who sped the woodman's team,
And deepest sunk the plowman's share,
And pushed the laden raft astream,
Of fate before him unaware.

This was the hand