This week marks Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. Writing about Lincoln is a little like writing about Jesus or King Arthur – he has been so mythologized that the original shape of the man is almost obscured. But Lincoln is definitely worth unwrapping. He is a man both of his time and beyond it – formed (as we all are) by the specifics of his era and yet surprisingly contemporary in his outlook. The more you learn about him, the more interesting and appealing he becomes.
Lincoln in the 1850s
Lincoln is a writer's President if there ever was one – deeply and broadly read; finely sensitive to the implications of language; disciplined, eloquent, and powerful in his own writing. (Garry Willis' Pulitzer Prize-winning study of the Gettsyburg Address, Lincoln at Gettysburg: the Words that Remade America, traces the historical and rhetorical ideas Lincoln wove together in perhaps his most famous speech – definitely worth a read.) Lincoln also published a poem or two. The best-known is perhaps "My Childhood Home I See Again," in which the speaker describes a visit back to his birthplace and an encounter with a mentally ill inhabitant of the town. It has been used as evidence of Lincoln's deep melancholy and fascination with death, although I think the argument could be made that most poets have work that reflects this. ("Why don't you write something cheerful, for God's sake? Everything you write is so depressing!")
According to the website, Abraham Lincoln Online, in May 1847, Lincoln's friend Andrew Johnston (not to be confused with his future Vice-President) anonymously published some poems Lincoln had sent him in the Quincy, Illinois Whig. One of these was "My Childhood Home." The other was a lesser-known piece, "The Bear Hunt."
"The Bear Hunt" is remarkable, not so much for its poetic artistry (it's pretty clunky in places), but for the speaker's point of view. Remember that Lincoln was a frontiersman – he was brought up in a wilderness that most people of his era probably did not find picturesque but instead menacing, dangerous, and unforgiving; whatever living you could scratch out of it, you were entitled to. In contrast, Lincoln's bear is the noble one in this story. The irony is heavy-handed, but it leaves no doubt in the reader's mind what the speaker thinks of the hunters, who bang and crash and bicker drunkenly through the poem. (A note – "fice" is an obsolete term for a small, yappy, excitable mongrel on uncertain lineage, from whence we get the word "fiesty.")
"The Bear Hunt"
A wild-bear chace, didst never see?
Then hast thou lived in vain.
Thy richest bump of glorious glee,
Lies desert in thy brain.
When first my father settled here,
'Twas then the frontier line:
The panther's scream, filled night with fear
And bears preyed on the swine.
But wo for Bruin's short lived fun,
When rose the squealing cry;
Now man and horse, with dog and gun,
For vengeance, at him fly.
A sound of danger strikes his ear;
He gives the breeze a snuff;
Away he bounds, with little fear,
And seeks the tangled rough.
On press his foes, and reach the ground,
Where's left his half munched meal;
The dogs, in circles, scent around,
And find his fresh made trail.
With instant cry, away they dash,
And men as fast pursue;
O'er logs they leap, through water splash,
And shout the brisk halloo.
Now to elude the eager pack,
Bear shuns the open ground;
Th[r]ough matted vines, he shapes his track
And runs it, round and round.
The tall fleet cur, with deep-mouthed voice,
Now speeds him, as the wind;
While half-grown pup, and short-legged fice,
Are yelping far behind.
And fresh recruits are dropping in
To join the merry corps:
With yelp and yell,–a mingled din–
The woods are in a roar.
And round, and round the chace now goes,
The world's alive with fun;
Nick Carter's horse, his rider throws,
And more, Hill drops his gun.
Now sorely pressed, bear glances back,
And lolls his tired tongue;
When as, to force him from his track,
An ambush on him sprung.
Across the glade he sweeps for flight,
And fully is in view.
The dogs, new-fired, by the sight,
Their cry, and speed, renew.
The foremost ones, now reach his rear,
He turns, they dash away;
And circling now, the wrathful bear,
They have him full at bay.
At top of speed, the horse-men come,
All screaming in a row,
"Whoop! Take him Tiger. Seize him Drum."
Bang,–bang–the rifles go.
And furious now, the dogs he tears,
And crushes in his ire,
Wheels right and left, and upward rears,
With eyes of burning fire.
But leaden death is at his heart,
Vain all the strength he plies.
And, spouting blood from every part,
He reels, and sinks, and dies.
And now a dinsome clamor rose,
'Bout who should have his skin;
Who first draws blood, each hunter knows,
This prize must always win.
But who did this, and how to trace
What's true from what's a lie,
Like lawyers, in a murder case
They stoutly argufy.
Aforesaid fice, of blustering mood,
Behind, and quite forgot,
Just now emerging from the wood,
Arrives upon the spot.
With grinning teeth, and up-turned hair–
Brim full of spunk and wrath,
He growls, and seizes on dead bear,
And shakes for life and death.
And swells as if his skin would tear,
And growls and shakes again;
And swears, as plain as dog can swear,
That he has won the skin.
Conceited whelp! we laugh at thee–
Nor mind, that now a few
Of pompous, two-legged dogs there be,
Conceited quite as you.
An American black bear, of the type Lincoln probably was familiar with.