Tomorrow is celebrated in the Usa as Abraham Lincoln'south Birthday—or rather, information technology was in the past. In 1971, a uniform Monday holiday, frequently called President's Twenty-four hours, centralized what had been in the past dual, carve up, celebrations of Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's.

Washington (as poet Phillis Wheatley'due south motto for him said) was first in war and get-go in peace, and we owe him a keen debt for existence the rare revolutionary leader that did not try to crown his success with dictatorship. But Lincoln's achievements are equally Washington's equal; though his fundamental achievement, a US government that no longer enforced chattel slavery throughout the country has in recent decades been somewhat obscured for complex reasons.

But here at the Parlando Project, where we combine music with words, Lincoln gets extra props for being as great a wordsmith as any US Chief Executive. While taking the diverse roads that lead to this piece I read his famous Gettysburg Accost, or rather refreshed myself with the words in manuscript form, for as a child I had memorized it.

At this site it's possible to trace the slight revisions that Lincoln applied draft by draft to polish this concise statement of dedication. And the same site linked to another site that let me read (for the first fourth dimension) Edward Everett'southward principal speech at the aforementioned Gettysburg dedication.

Maybe yous've heard the story of how the two speeches that twenty-four hour period in 1863 contrasted. It'southward no legend. Everett's voice communication lasted over ii hours. Lincoln's could have fitted his into a linked series of five Tweets today, and it takes a couple of minutes to read. Go alee, read every bit much of Everett's voice communication every bit you can. It'due south the kind of yard utterance that could have caused the 19th Century to invent TLDNR 140 years sooner.

So, Lincoln could fashion a memorable, resonant phrase and express complex things concisely. That's the kind of literary talent that leads ane to inquire if he wrote poetry. He did, but as far equally nosotros know, in that location's not very much of it. He wrote some occasional, brusk, light verse. His serious poetic works consist of an attributed poem with a narrator speaking of suicide, and a 3-part poem recalling his hometown.

Abe Lincoln in 1847

Abe Lincoln in his mid-30s, 1847, around the time he wrote today's words.

It'southward from the starting time function of that later Lincoln poem that I created today's piece, "My Babyhood Dwelling I See Again."  Information technology was published anonymously through the efforts of a friend of his in 1847. Lincoln was in his troubled 30s when his longer poems were written, and he seems to accept been suffering from low, the depth and length of which is subject of much discussion amongst historical scholars.

The parts I used from "My Childhood Home I See Again"  tell much the same story as English poet Thomas Hardy'southward "The Self Unseeing,"  but Lincoln's poem is more melancholy, fifty-fifty if he tries to make some pretense of information technology being only contemplative. By the concluding couplet, Lincoln'southward own words put in him the situation of George Saunders' "Lincoln in the Bardo."   I suppose one could also compare Lincoln and Hardy's poems to my ain piece "Homeopathic Hometown."

For today'due south music I used an acoustic guitar and my semi-acoustic Jack Casady bass guitar for the main accompaniment. I effort to stay away from musical instrument-geekery near of the time here, but that bass was actually designed past the musician, it's not some "pigment information technology a different colour and slap on a decal" marketing gimmick. I love its audio, as you may be able to tell from the mix today. To hear too much (or but enough) bass guitar, and Lincoln's pitiful words every bit I set them to music, utilize the role player beneath.