May 28, 2015

Max’s Musings

Moleston-Head-colorBy Max Molleston

I admit to writing for your consumption for a dozen years in this magazine, through the generosity of owners and editors. I do not recall writing about the poet, Abraham Lincoln. Dozens of publications, mostly books and scholarly monographs (otherwise known as “papers”) work with Lincoln’s ability to put words to paper in a  somewhat  elevated style. His address at the dedication of National  Cemetery  near Gettysburg stands at the forefront. Earliest notice of Abe Lincoln as writer and poet, with  the  fun of including himself,  is said to read like this.

Abraham Lincoln
his hand and pen
he will be good but
God knows when

Professor X.J. Kennedy writes that these  lines may not have been penned by the 16th President, but relates he entertained a desire to write poetry. Many have termed his address at Gettysburg, a prose poem, or just poetry. Kennedy’s textbook, An Introduction to Poetry, first published in the mid 1970s is valid forty years later. His book section, “Telling the Good from the Bad,” also deals with a much longer Lincoln poem, (twenty-four stanzas, total of ninety-six lines), a reflection on a trip back to Kentucky, his birthplace, and burial ground for his mother and only sister. The title is “My Childhood Home I See Again.” We select from this poem. Typical and standard in Lincoln’s  time,  rhyme is the master of this skillfully done message.

My childhood home I see again,
And gladden with the view;
And still as mem’ries crowd my brain,
There’s sadness in it too.

O memory! Thou mid-way world
Twixt Earth and Paradise,
Where things decayed, and loved one lost
In dreamy shadows rise

And freed from all things gross or vile
Seem hallowed, pure and bright,
Like scenes in some enchanted isle,
All bathed in liquid light.

The largely self-educated Lincoln, with good  mentorship  in the law, gave us his keen lyrical sense and feeling, very much  in keeping  with rhyming of his time. His poem shows a very natural and developed sensibility and sentimental delivery.(who knows the amount of revision in this long and beautifully labored poem). Whole libraries and shelves of books call you to  read on Abraham Lincoln as President ,Republican party political leader, and the Union’s Civil War Commander. All these he was and became. Collections of his language to his Cabinet, to federal legislators and the general population are on library shelves, stored originals and reprinted reside in private and governmental collections. Spaced apart by years, sometimes decades, news of a transfer of Lincoln memorabilia, including his writings comes to us eventually in the newspapers we read.

Fair to say, and hopefully accurate, as much or more has been developed by his dedicated following in his time and thereafter than any other person can match. Professor Kennedy, scholar at Tufts University, moved further into the long poem Lincoln composed after revisiting his Kentucky home. Kennedy writes that following the first half of this long poem,  Lincoln thought and recalled the tragedy of a key friendship, a close chum of his early manhood, who became demented in his late teens.(recognized today as a key age recognized in a conversion to one or another certified form of insanity). Lincoln’s recollection is long and full, and brings with it the best sense I’ve read of power generated by Lincoln’s intellect and his ability to recall and gauge the initial severity of Matthews mental malaise. Over time, the violence typical of his friend declined into what literary notes related as “a harmless insanity.” If you choose to read the poem, it may be available on the web, under the title ”My Childhood-Home I see Again.” Look to Lincoln.

One thing we know through research and writing is Lincoln possessed  desire and  skill to help a crowd of folks pass time as a teller of stories, some on himself, others perhaps some conjured stem-winder from a  keen sense of his surroundings and the people coupled with  sets of circumstances, wherever that might be. We are sharing  parts of a college level textbook exploring poetry, in particular, a single gaze on skills Lincoln either was born with and/ or developed through other exposures during his  varied lifetime. Ambitious writers will continue a fascination with Lincoln over who he was, how he was, and , for some reason or another, why he was.

With great  pleasure I completed a  booklet  zeroing on the seven messages between Generals Grant and Lee, leading to the April 9, 1865 surrender of the Confederate military cause. President Lincoln closely surveyed aspects of the U.S. Civil War through the newest communication magic, the telegraph, with its copper wires strung to as many  strategic  points as possible in the armed combat. The war ran on four hard years. Competent commanders  of both Union and Confederate militia, killing and maiming thousands upon thousands of the best available youth.

Field commanders on both sides of the conflict became special  targets for Union and Confederate snipers. The North worked to destroy lifestyles, good and bad, operating for over two centuries in the deep south where slaves, their masters, land, cotton and sugar acted as an agricultural civilization.

We are full into summer months and I ask you to join me in July to see what I work on to inform and entertain all of you faithful.

Filed Under: Humor

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