But Here's An Object More Of Dread

written by


« Reload image

  But here's an object more of dread
  Than aught the grave contains--
  A human form with reason fled,
  While wretched life remains.

  When terror spread, and neighbors ran
  Your dangerous strength to bind,
  And soon, a howling, crazy man,
  Your limbs were fast confined;

  How then you strove and shrieked aloud,
  Your bones and sinews bared;
  And fiendish on the gazing crowd
  With burning eyeballs glared;

  And begged and swore, and wept and prayed,
  With maniac laughter joined;
  How fearful were these signs displayed
  By pangs that killed the mind!

  And when at length the drear and long
  Time soothed thy fiercer woes,
  How plaintively thy mournful song
  Upon the still night rose!

  I've heard it oft as if I dreamed,
  Far distant, sweet and lone,
  The funeral dirge it ever seemed
  Of reason dead and gone.

  To drink its strains I've stole away,
  All stealthily and still,
  Ere yet the rising god of day
  Had streaked the eastern hill.

  Air held her breath; trees with the spell
  Seemed sorrowing angels round,
  Whose swelling tears in dewdrops fell
  Upon the listening ground.

  But this is past, and naught remains
  That raised thee o'er the brute:
  Thy piercing shrieks and soothing strains
  Are like, forever mute.

  Now fare thee well! More thou the cause
  Than subject now of woe.
  All mental pangs by time's kind laws
  Hast lost the power to know.

  O death! thou awe-inspiring prince
  That keepst the world in fear,
  Why dost thou tear more blest ones hence,
  And leave him lingering here?

© Abraham Lincoln