  Even when he was a boy Lincoln was sometimes called upon to write poetry. The following are among his earliest attempts at rhyme: Good boys who to their books apply, Will all be great men by and by. It is needless to say that Lincoln himself carried out what he wrote so well; in other words, he “practiced what he preached.” It was in a great measure owing to his constant application to his books that he afterward became a great man. The following poem Mr. Lincoln wrote in 1844, while on a visit to the home of his childhood: My childhood’s home I see again And sadden with the view; And, still, as memory crowds my brain, There’s pleasure in it, too. Oh, memory, thou midway world ’Twixt earth and paradise, Where things decayed and loved ones lost In dreamy shadows rise; And, freed from all that’s earthy vile, Seems hallowed, pure and bright, Like scenes in some enchanted isle, All bathed in liquid light. |
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