MR. LINCOLN'S FAVORITE POEM, AND ITS AUTHOR

HE author of the poem which was so great a favorite with our late President, beginning with the line,

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud!

was William Knox, a Scottish poet of very considerable talent, who died at the early age of thirty-six. He was born at Firth, in the parish of Lilliesleaf, in the county of Roxburghshire, on the seventeenth of August, 1789. His father, Thomas Knox, married Barbara Turnbull, and of this marriage, William was the eldest son. He was sent to the parish school of Lilliesleaf, and subsequently to the grammar-school of Musselburgh. In 1812 he became lessee of a farm near Langholm, Dumfriesshire; but his habits were not those of a thriving farmer, and at the expiration of five years he gave up his lease and returned to the shelter of the parental roof. In 1820 the family removed to Edinburgh, and William now devoted himself to the more congenial pursuit of literature, contributing extensively to the public journals. From his early youth he had composed verses, and in 1818 he published The Lonely Hearth and other Poems, followed six years later by The Songs of Israel, two small 12mo volumes now in our possession. In 1825 appeared a a third duodecimo volume of lyrics, entitled The Harp of Zion. Knox's poetical merits attracted the attention of Sir Walter Scott, who afforded him kindly countenance, and occasional pecuniary assistance; he also enjoyed the friendly notice of "Christopher North" and other men of letters. Of most amiable and genial disposition, poor Knox fell a victim to the undue gratification of his social propensities; he was seized with paralysis, and died at Edinburgh on the twelfth of November, 1825.

His poetry is largely pervaded with pathetic and religious sentiment. In the preface to his Songs of Zion, he says: "It is my

sincere wish that, while I may have provided a slight gratification for the admirer of poetry, I may also have done something to raise the devotional feelings of the pious Christian." Some of his Scripture paraphrases are exquisite specimens of sacred verse. A new edition of his poetical works was published in London in 1847. Besides the volumes already mentioned, and his various contributions to the Edinburgh press, he published A Visit to Dublin, and a beautiful Christmas tale, entitled, Marianne, or the Widower's Daughter.

Knox was short in stature, but handsomely formed; his complexion fair, and his hair of a light color. He was a great favorite in society, possessing an inexhaustible fund of humor, was an excellent story-teller, and repeated and sang his own songs with great beauty. He was keenly alive to his literary reputation, and could not but have been gratified had he known that one of his poetical efforts would one day go the rounds of our press and that of the Canadas, as the production of a President of the United States, and that President Abraham Lincoln.

As the poem has already appeared but in an incomplete formthe fourth and seventh stanzas being omitted-we give the whole, together with a little gem, The Lament, one of his earliest productions, written before he was twenty:

MORTALITY

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift, fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie.

The infant and mother attended and loved;
The mother that infant's affection who proved;
The husband that mother and infant who blessed-
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure-her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those that beloved her and praised,
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn;
The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap;
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep;
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint that enjoyed the communion of heaven;
The sinner that dared to remain unforgiven;
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed,
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream and view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;

From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging they also would cling:
But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but the story we can not unfold;

They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from that slumber will come;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died, ay! they died: we things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yes! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;

And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud.
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

THE LAMENT.

She was mine when the leaves of the forest were green,
When the rose-blossoms hung on the tree;

And dear, dear to me were the joys that had been,

And I dreamt of enjoyment to be.

But she faded more fast than the blossoms could fade,

No human attention could save;

And when the green leaves of the forest decayed,

The winds strewed them over her grave.

NEW YORK.

JAMES GRANT WILSON, U.S.A.