by Vachel Lindsay
(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 on 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.
portentous: giving a sign or
warning that something is
going to happen
thing of state: a matter of
state; something of national
concern or importance
homestead: a house and the
farmland it is on
prairie-lawyer: an attorney
who has completed
little or no formal legal
training and has become
a member of a state bar
through apprenticeship and
study; partly through its
association with Lincoln, the
image of a prairie-lawyer
is one of a protector of the
common man
dreadnaughts: (or
dreadnoughts) early 20th
century battleships
He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn
Shall come;—the shining hope of Europe free;
The league of sober folk, the Workers’ Earth,
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.
It breaks his heart that kings 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?
Abraham Lincoln Poem
You will read the text in this activity at least three times, focusing on a different purpose for each reading.
First Reading: First Impressions
Read the following poem silently. Your focus for this first reading is on understanding the meaning of the poem. As you read, practice diffusing the words you may not know by replacing unfamiliar words with the definitions or synonyms for the words that appear to the right. Using this strategy will help your understanding.
Second Reading: Vocabulary in Context
Now that you have read the poem silently, listen and follow along as your teacher reads the poem aloud. As you read along with your teacher, circle words and/ or phrases (other than the underlined words) that you do not know or that you feel are important to the meaning of the poem. Diffuse these words/phrases for comprehension.
Check Your Understanding
1. Pair with another student and use context clues and reference resources to determine the meaning of any new words you need to define. Choose six words from those that have been underlined, bolded, and/or that you have circled, and paraphrase the definition to show your understanding.
2. Choose two or three of the words you have examined that you think are important to your understanding of the poem. Use the words to summarize the central ideas in the poem and show how these words contribute to your understanding of the poem.
Third Reading: Text-Dependent Questioning
Now read the poem again, this time reading to respond to the Key Ideas and Details interpretive questions. Write your responses to each question and highlight or underline the textual evidence that supports your answer. During class discussion, you may also want to annotate the poem to record new or different meanings of the text.
Check Your Understanding
Now that you have read closely and worked to understand challenging portions of this poem, choose a line that you think is critical to understanding what the poem is about and why the author wrote it. Explain in your own words what the line means and why it is important to your understanding of the poem.
Synthesizing Your Understanding
Now that you have read the poem three times and studied its vocabulary and sentences, synthesize your understanding by responding to the following questions about shift, attitude, and theme as a way of bringing all your knowledge together.
1. Shift: It is rare that a poem begins and ends with the same emotion or idea. When reading poetry, watch for the following markers that may indicate a shift:
• key transitional words, such as but, yet, or however
• punctuation that indicates a change, such as dashes, periods, colons, or ellipses
• stanza divisions
• differences in line and/or stanza length
• changes in the subject, emotion, or setting of the poem
What shift(s) can you identify in this poem? Record each line number at which you believe a shift occurs, and describe the kind of shift that is occurring.
Key Ideas and Details
What is the meaning of the question at the end of the poem? Who is asking it, and how do you know?
2. Attitude: An author’s attitude in a piece of literature is expressed through its tone. The tone conveys the emotion that a speaker or writer wants to communicate about a subject. It is common for works of literature, including poetry, to involve more than one attitude and/or tone. What attitudes can you identify in this poem? What evidence helps you identify these attitudes?
3. Theme: A theme in any work of literature can be described as an idea, message, or perspective on the topic that the speaker or writer wants to communicate to the audience. What possible themes can you identify in this poem? What evidence helps you identify these themes?
Writing Prompt: Based on your current understanding of the poem, explain how
Lindsay conveys a theme about Abraham Lincoln. Be sure to
• Identify a theme in the poem.
• Provide textual evidence to support your analysis.
• Include commentary explaining how the details in the poem support a theme.