  Lincoln Visits the Old Indiana Home Lincoln an Admirer of Henry Clay—A Whig Elector—Goes to Indiana—Makes Speeches—Old Friends and Old—Time Scenes—Writes a Poem. In 1844, Henry Clay was a candidate for President of the United States, on the Whig ticket. Abraham Lincoln was a great admirer of Mr. Clay, and referred to him as his "beau-ideal of a statesman." He was placed on the Whig ticket as presidential elector, and made speeches in favor of Mr. Clay's election. During the canvass he visited his old home and acquaintances in Indiana for the first time since he left, fourteen years before, and it was his only visit to the home of his youth. On the 22d of October, 1898, Thomas Bunton, then seventy-five years old, said to me: "I heard Lincoln speak in Gentryville in 1844. I saw him coming to the place of meeting with Mr. Jones. I heard Lincoln say, 'Don't introduce me to any one; I want to see how many I can recognize.' He went around shaking hands, and when he came to me he said, 'This is a Bunton.'" Captain Lamar said, at the time of my visit to him already mentioned: "At the close of Lincoln's speech, near Buffaloville, he said, 'Friends and fellow-citizens, I may never see you again, but give us a protective tariff and you will some day see the greatest nation the sun ever shone over.' While saying this he pointed to the east and, raising his hand, he closed the sentence pointing to the west. From the speaking I went with him Mr. Lincoln was so impressed by his visit to the old home that he wrote a descriptive poem, which is published in some of the Lincoln biographies. The following letter, written in 1846, explains why he wrote the poem: "The piece of poetry of my own which I allude to I was led to write under the following circumstances: In the fall of 1844, thinking I might aid to carry the State of Indiana for Mr. Clay, I went to the neighborhood in that State in which I was raised, where my mother and my only sister are buried, and from which I had been about fifteen years. That part of the country is, within itself, as unpoetical as any spot of the earth; but still, seeing it and its objects and inhabitants aroused feelings in me which were certainly poetry, though whether my expression of these feelings is poetry is quite another question. When I got to writing, the change of subject divided the thing into four little divisions, or cantos, the first only of which I send you, and may send the others hereafter." "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. "Q 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 earthly vile, Seem hallowed, pure, and bright, Like scenes in some enchanted isle, All bathed in liquid light. "As dusky mountains please the eye, When twilight chases day; As bugle notes that, passing by, In distance die away; "As leaving some grand waterfall, We, lingering, list its roar; So memory will hallow all We've known, but know no more. "Near twenty years have passed away Since here I bid farewell To woods and fields, and scenes of play, And playmates loved so well; "Where many were, but few remain, Of old, familiar things; But seeing them to mind again The lost and absent brings. "The friends I left that parting day, How changed! as time has sped Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray, And half of all are dead. "I hear the loud survivors tell How naught from death could save, Till every sound appears a knell, And every spot a grave. "I range the fields with pensive tread, And pace the hollow rooms, And feel (companions of the dead), I'm living in the tombs." |
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