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 loved survivors tell
How nought 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 (companion of the dead)
I'm living in the tombs.
What would a life look like if all the layers were made of beauty?
Here in this poem by Lincoln we see the many and varied textures that overlay his life--we did not see all because this was written when he was only thirty-seven years old.
And yet, because we know the ending of the story, we put our own textures and overlays upon his life, upon his poem.
We smile wanly at first and then tears dim our eyes as we read about him and his childhood friends romping in meadows and wading in woods knowing the antics of those forests and fields will soon turn to the massacred and sacred grounds of so many Gettysburgs.
The last layer of his life for me included an awe that I cannot explain and goose bumps that seemed as big as goose eggs as I stood at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. and read scripture quoted by him and knew that he had completed his calling--that as long as America is free, we will celebrate his life and all it stands for.
The very first photograph is layered with Kim Klassen's 'wonderful magic scripted' at 59% and 'evolve 2' at 95%. After I really got involved in this post and it started to take shape, my thoughts were that the "It's a wonderful life" (the script in the first picture) would be too light, too whimsical to mesh with the rest of the post.
However, as I read about his early life, I knew Lincoln did have a wonderful life--however tragic, however laden with responsibilities and decisions that would seem far from wonderful, however short, it was still a life filled with victory and freedom.
Rejoice in your life today.
In Him we live and move and have our being. Acts 17:28
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© ALL ART, PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT PROPERTY OF ELIZABETH DIANNE UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, 2008-2014
