Lincoln's Last Address

                                         Lincoln's Last Address

Seven score and four years ago, I left this world believing there would soon be freedom from a war as yet unfinished. But I had as little freedom as the actors in a play I saw that night. A shame I couldn't get to see the end of it. One of the actors said a line with the word "man-trap"; I couldn't help but laugh. I felt so free of any cares, I didn't hear the footsteps of a man behind me. The gunshot's echo through the theatre, the screaming of my wife and of my guests, the people's feet stampeding- all this I heard before I lost perception of this world, retreating to the fancies of the mind when I could apprehend no more. In this vague gray awareness flanked by life and death, I wondered what my fate would be. Would my limèd soul which struggled to be free become consumed by fire? Was it these cursèd hands, thick with the blood of brothers of the North and South, which left me floating through this mist? Then I recalled a dream which I had seen more than a week before. In it, I felt as still as death. I rose up from my bed, hearing wails of grief. I walked downstairs and all around the house; the lights were on, but not a soul was found. Within the empty house, I still heard voices weeping, like the Hebrews who would never see the Promised Land. At last, beneath the East Room's diamond chandeliers, I found the mourners. A man draped in black lay on a catafalque, and they surrounded him. I asked a soldier who that person was. He said "The President." A final wail receded in my memory, but then a blaze of glory rose, obliterating all the dismal gray within its wide compass. That burning star then spoke, "Go now, to where eternal peace alone doth reign."  Such joy I felt! I floated towards its endless light, the light, the light, the light! And while I floated, I reflected on my life: my boyhood years in Kentucky and Indiana, where I read every book that could be found; the days I floated down the Mississippi; the long, long hours in the legislature; those fleeting heartfelt moments with my wife and children. Once I reached the light's source, I reunited with my sons: Willie, Eddy, here I am! And here I still remain. Please do not think of me as a martyr driven to redeem this country. I only did what little I could do in such a place and time. And freedom- for the people, by the people, of the people -was what I sought. Yet we are all but names inscribed into the book of life- the rest is in God's hands.