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Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) from My Childhood-Home I See Again
My childhood's home I see again,
O Memory! thou midway world
And, freed from all that's earthly vile,
As dusky mountains please the eye
As leaving some grand waterfall,
Near twenty years have passed away
Where many were, but few remain
The friends I left that parting day,
I hear the loved survivors tell
I range the fields with pensive tread,
Lincoln wrote the above poem after an 1844 visit to Perry County (now Spencer County) Indiana where he was raised, and it is the first of four Canto's he planned to write about the visit. The above version of the first Canto was sent to Andrew Johnston of Springfield, Illinois on April 18th, 1846. An earlier version of the first two Cantos was sent to Johnston in February of 1846, and the first two Cantos were published anonymously by Johnston in the Quincy Whig on May 5, 1847. The final two Cantos have not been identified. More information can be found in: Lincoln was 16th President of the United States of America. |