walk.”

Lincoln? he was a dreamer.

He saw ships at sea,

he saw himself living and dead

in dreams that came.

Into a secretary’s diary December 23, 1863

went an entry: “The President tonight

had a dream. He was in a party of plain

people, and, as it became known who

he was, they began to comment on his

appearance. One of them said: ‘He is a

very common-looking man.’ The Presi-

dent replied: ‘The Lord prefers com-

mon-looking people. That is the reason

he makes so many of them.’”

He spoke one verse for then and now:

“If we could first know where we are,

and whither we are tending,

we could better judge

what to do, and how to do it.”

The Long Shadow of Lincoln: A Litany

(We can succeed only by concert.… The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves.… December 1, 1862. The President’s Message to Congress.)

Be sad, be cool, be kind,

remembering those now dreamdust

hallowed in the ruts and gullies,

solemn bones under the smooth blue sea,

faces warblown in a falling rain.

Be a brother, if so can be,

to those beyond battle fatigue

each in his own corner of earth

or forty fathoms undersea

beyond all boom of guns,

beyond any bong of a great bell,

each with a bosom and number,

each with a pack of secrets,

each with a personal dream and doorway

and over them now the long endless winds

with the low healing song of time,

the hush and sleep murmur of time.

Make your wit a guard and cover.

Sing low, sing high, sing wide.

Let your laughter come free

remembering looking toward peace:

“We must disenthrall ourselves.”

Be a brother, if so can be,

to those thrown forward

for taking hardwon lines,

for holding hardwon points

and their reward so-so,

little they care to talk about,

their pay held in a mute calm,

highspot memories going unspoken,

what they did being past words,

what they took being hardwon.

Be sad, be kind, be cool.

Weep if you must

And weep open and shameless

before these altars.

There are wounds past words.

There are cripples less broken

than many who walk whole.

There are dead youths

with wrists of silence

who keep a vast music

under their shut lips,

what they did being past words,

their dreams like their deaths

beyond any smooth and easy telling,

having given till no more to give.

There is dust alive

with dreams of The Republic,

with dreams of the Family of Man

flung wide on a shrinking globe

with old timetables,

old maps, old guide-posts

torn into shreds,

shot into tatters,

burnt in a firewind,

lost in the shambles,

faded in rubble and ashes.

There is dust alive.

Out of a granite tomb,