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Hidden Springs, Delicate Wheels: Prayer Just Before Spring
Lord, You have witnessed all of slavery's
ravage across the whole breadth of this nation.
Not just a policy, but a contaigion
in us, just as the typhus was on Ann's
body. The fever's heat, the lungs' weak wheeze,
the untold pain of dying agonies:
these are apt symbols of society's
worst illness. I am sure it does not please
You. Lord, how ineffectual is a man's
efforts if you have not, aforehand, blessed
them. In this crisis, not a mere contest,
I ask to have a wiser mind and heart,
even beyond the final victory's
senses of calm relief and high elation---
for even after peace some kind of strife
may linger, as a burden on my life . . .
until Ann and I are, no more, apart.
Interesting Comparison
Slavery and the ravages of an incurable disease - apt~~~Lady A
Thank you
I appreciate the kind words. Edgar Lee Masters was the first poet to suggest a relationship between Lincoln's feelings for Anne Rutledge and the Civil War, but he did not specify the analogy. His poem on and for Anne Rutledge is one of the great masterpieces of American poetry, and a poem that never fails to move me----no matter how many times I read it.
Seryddwr