In the Oakland Cemetery, at Petersburg, Illinois (Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Curiously, being in Chicago, I\u2019ve begun to think of the most famous adopted son of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. \u00a0Many years ago, with her parents, my wife and I visited parts of the state associated with him. \u00a0One of those places was the Oakland Cemetery in Petersburg, where\u00a0Ann Rutledge, who\u00a0died at the age of 22 of typhoid, is buried.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to some, although this is disputed by\u00a0others, she was Abraham Lincoln\u2019s first and deepest love.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Long after she died, a granite monument was placed atop her grave, bearing a poem from the famous 1915 Spoon River Anthology<\/em> of Edgar Lee Masters:
\n<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n
Out of me unworthy and unknown<\/span>
\nThe vibrations of deathless music:<\/span>
\n\u201cWith malice toward none, with charity toward all.\u201d<\/span>
\nOut of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions,<\/span>
\nAnd the beneficent face of a nation<\/span>
\nShining with justice and truth.<\/span>
\nI am Ann Rutledge who sleeps beneath these weeds,<\/span>
\nBeloved in life of Abraham Lincoln,<\/span>
\nWedded to him, not through union,<\/span>
\nBut through separation.<\/span>
\nBloom forever, O Republic,<\/span>
\nFrom the dust of my bosom!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I first read (and was deeply moved by) that poem and the rest of the Spoon River Anthology<\/em>\u00a0in high school \u2014 as I was moved, many years later, by our visit to Oakland Cemetery. \u00a0I hope, someday, to visit it again.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the meantime, I\u2019m grateful to John Hancock for calling my attention\u00a0to a poem entitled \u201cMortality,\u201d written\u00a0in 1824 by the Scot William Knox. \u00a0According to Brother Hancock,\u00a0Abraham Lincoln memorized the poem and recited it so frequently\u00a0that some thought he was its author. \u00a0He is even said to have remarked that \u201cI would give all I am worth, and go in debt, to be able to write so fine a piece as I think that is.\u201d \u00a0It apparently spoke to the deep melancholy from which he is known to have suffered \u2014 and perhaps it also captured an enduring sorrow for Ann Rutledge:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mortality<\/i><\/span>
\nBy William Knox<\/span><\/p>\nOh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?<\/span>
\nLike a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud<\/span>
\nA flash of the lightning, a break of the wave<\/span>
\nHe passeth from life to his rest in the grave.<\/span><\/p>\nThe leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,<\/span>
\nBe scattered around, and together be laid;<\/span>
\nAnd the young and the old, and the low and the high,<\/span>
\nShall moulder to dust, and together shall lie.<\/span><\/p>\nThe infant a mother attended and loved;<\/span>
\nThe mother that infant\u2019s affection who proved;<\/span>
\nThe husband, that mother and infant who blest,\u2013<\/span>
\nEach, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.<\/span><\/p>\nThe maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,<\/span>
\nShone beauty and pleasure, \u2014 her triumphs are by;<\/span>
\nAnd the memory of those who loved her and praised,<\/span>
\nAre alike from the minds of the living erased.<\/span><\/p>\nThe hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne,<\/span>
\nThe brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn,<\/span>
\nThe eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,<\/span>
\nAre hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.<\/span><\/p>\nThe peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap,<\/span>
\nThe herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep,<\/span>
\nThe beggar, who wandered in search of his bread,<\/span>
\nHave faded away like the grass that we tread.<\/span><\/p>\nThe saint, who enjoyed the communion of Heaven,<\/span>
\nThe sinner, who dared to remain unforgiven,<\/span>
\nThe wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,<\/span>
\nHave quietly mingled their bones in the dust.<\/span><\/p>\nSo the multitude goes \u2014 like the flower or the weed<\/span>
\nThat withers away to let others succeed;<\/span>
\nSo the multitude comes \u2014 even those we behold,<\/span>
\nTo repeat every tale that has often been told.<\/span><\/p>\nFor we are the same our fathers have been;<\/span>
\nWe see the same sights our fathers have seen;<\/span>
\nWe drink the same stream, we view the same sun,<\/span>
\nAnd run the same course our fathers have run.<\/span><\/p>\nThe thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think;<\/span>
\nFrom the death we are shrinking, our fathers would shrink;<\/span>
\nTo the life we are clinging, they also would cling; \u2014<\/span>
\nBut it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.<\/span><\/p>\nThey loved \u2014 but the story we cannot unfold;<\/span>
\nThey scorned \u2014 but the heart of the haughty is cold;<\/span>
\nThey grieved \u2014 but no wail from their slumber will come;<\/span>
\nThey joyed \u2014 but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.<\/span><\/p>\nThey died \u2014 ay, they died; \u2014 we things that are now,<\/span>
\nThat walk on the turf that lies over their brow,<\/span>
\nAnd make in their dwellings a transient abode;<\/span>
\nMeet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.<\/span><\/p>\nYea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,<\/span>
\nAre mingled together in sunshine and rain;<\/span>
\nAnd the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,<\/span>
\nStill follow each other, like surge upon surge.<\/span><\/p>\n\u2018Tis the wink of an eye \u2014 \u2019tis the draught of a breath\u2013<\/span>
\nFrom the blossom of health to the paleness of death,<\/span>
\nFrom the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud:\u2013<\/span>
\nOh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Morbid? \u00a0Gloomy? \u00a0Perhaps. \u00a0But sometimes it\u2019s healthy to remember that we\u2019re mortal, and that all earthly things must pass. \u00a0And rather quickly, too.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Chicago, Illinois<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Curiously, being in Chicago, I\u2019ve begun to think of the most famous adopted son of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. \u00a0Many years ago, with her parents, my wife and I visited parts of the state associated with him. \u00a0One of those places was the Oakland Cemetery in Petersburg, where\u00a0Ann Rutledge, who\u00a0died at the age of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Where](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2017\/11\/Headstones_from_Oakland_Cemetery.jpg\")
<\/a>