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HIS FACE
They tell you Lincoln was ungainly, plain?
To some he seemed so: true.
Yet in his look was charm to gain
E'en such as I, who knew
With how confirmed a will he tried
To overthrow a cause for which I would have died.
The sun may shine with naught to shroud
Its beam, yet show less bright
Than when from out eclipsing cloud
It pours its radiant light;
And Lincoln, seen amid the shows of war
Clothed in his sober black, was somehow felt the more
To be a centre and a soul of power,—
An influence benign
To kindle in a faithless hour
New trust in the divine.
Grave was his visage, but no cloud could dull
The radiance from within that made it beautiful.
A prisoner, when I saw him first—
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