With Malice Toward None

The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition    

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Lincoln loved the rhyme and rhythm of words, and his familiarity with eighteenth-century poets like William Knox and Alexander Pope hints at an indulgence in the nostalgic and melancholy feelings their writings elicited. In this unfinished poem, Lincoln attempts to capture in verse the mixed feelings he experienced during a visit to his boyhood home while canvassing southern Indiana for the Whig candidate for president, Henry Clay, in the election of 1844. Lincoln's mother and sister both died while the family resided in Indiana, a fact that may have affected the tone of the poem. The final two cantos of the poem were either lost or unwritten.

(Transcription)

My child-hood home I see again,
And gladden with the view;
And still as mem'ries crowd my brain,
There's sadness in it too


Lincoln loved the rhyme and rhythm of words, and his familiarity with eighteenth-century poets like William Knox and Alexander Pope hints at an indulgence in the nostalgic and melancholy feelings their writings elicited. In this unfinished poem, Lincoln attempts to capture in verse the mixed feelings he experienced during a visit to his boyhood home while canvassing southern Indiana for the Whig candidate for president, Henry Clay, in the election of 1844. Lincoln's mother and sister both died while the family resided in Indiana, a fact that may have affected the tone of the poem. The final two cantos of the poem were either lost or unwritten.