Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


ON A BUST OF LINCOLN by CLINTON SCOLLARD

First Line: THIS WAS A MAN OF MIGHTY MOULD
Last Line: STAND AS HIS CENOTAPH!
Subject(s): HEROISM; LINCOLN, ABRAHAM (1809-1865); PRESIDENTS, UNITED STATES; HEROES; HEROINES;

THIS was a man of mighty mould
Who walked erewhile our earthly ways,
Fashioned as leaders were of old
In the heroic days!

Mark how austere the rugged height
Of brow -- a will not wrought to bend!
Yet in the eyes behold the light
That made the foe a friend!

Sagacious he beyond the test
Of quibbling schools that praise or ban;
Supreme in all the broadest, best,
We hail American.

When bronze is but as ash to flame,
And marble but as wind-blown chaff,
Still shall the luster of his name
Stand as his cenotaph!



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