Before “Lincoln in the Bardo,” there was “Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight.”
Vachel Lindsay’s poem, written in 1914, portrays Lincoln stirring from his eternal rest to roam the streets of Springfield, Illinois, still burdened by the nation’s troubles. I’d hate to think what Lincoln’s spirit must be going through today.
On Lincoln’s birthday, here’s Florence Price’s setting of Lindsay’s meditation. It is one of three Price settings of the poem rediscovered in 2009. From the information available, it would seem that all three would fit on one album. Somebody record these, please!
By coincidence, today also happens to be the anniversary of the birth of Roy Harris. Born on Lincoln’s birthday in 1898 – in a log cabin in Lincoln County, Oklahoma – surely Harris must have been filled with an apposite sense of destiny. Harris also set Lindsay’s poem, for mezzo-soprano, violin, cello and piano.
Harris was regarded as one of America’s greatest composers. He was particularly renowned for his symphonies. His Symphony No. 3 is his most famous work. The Symphony No. 6, formulated over a reading of Sandburg, is subtitled “Gettysburg.”
Each of the four movements bears a superscription from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address:
I. Awakening (“Fourscore and seven years ago…”);
II. Conflict (“Now we are engaged in a great civil war…”);
III. Dedication (“We are met on a great battlefield of that war…”);
IV. Affirmation (“…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…).
I call that putting a Price on linkin’ Harris and Lincoln.
“Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight”
(In Springfield, Illinois)
It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down,
Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards
He lingers where his children used to play,
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.
A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.
He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us:—as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long,
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.
His head is bowed. He thinks of men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why;
Too many homesteads in black terror weep.
The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.
He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now
The bitterness, the folly and the pain.
He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn
Shall come;—the shining hope of Europe free:
A league of sober folk, the Workers’ Earth,
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.
It breaks his heart that things must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?
Clockwise from upper right: Florence Price, Roy Harris, and Abraham Lincoln walking at midnight
