Copybook Verses1Jump to section
Abraham Lincoln
his hand and pen
he will be good but
god knows When2Jump to section
Abraham Lincoln his hand and pen he will be good
but god knows When Time What an emty vaper
tis and days how swift they are swift as an indian arr[ow]
Meter
fly on like a shooting star the presant moment Just [is here]
then slides away in h[as]te that we [can] never say they ['re ours]
but [only say] th[ey]'re past3Jump to section
Abraham Lincoln is my nam[e]
And with my pen I wrote the same
I wrote in both hast and speed
and left it here for fools to read
Annotation
[1] AD, DLC-HW; AD, ORB; AD, owned by Justin Turner, Los Angeles, California. The original text of these verses appears on pages of Lincoln's self-made arithmetic book, which was given to William H. Herndon by Lincoln's step-mother Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln. The sheets have been dispersed, and some of the original sheets have not been accounted for. Those which are known are reproduced in facsimile on the preceding pages.
Whether any of the verses were original with the boy Lincoln, has been questioned. His propensity for verse-making at this period is attested, however, by the tradition among the Spencer County, Indiana, citizens from whom Herndon gathered information. Mrs. Josiah Crawford provided from memory the so-called ``Chronicles of Reuben,'' composed in parody of Biblical narrative and satirizing a neighborhood wedding, and a few satirical verses which were purported to have been made and circulated by Lincoln as a youth. Although Herndon speaks of the ``Chronicles of Reuben'' as having come to light in a manuscript in ``Lincoln's handwriting,'' the only version Herndon seems to have had was the one written down by S. A. Crawford, as recited from memory by his mother, forty years after Lincoln was said to have composed them. Such a text has not seemed to the