Item #5271 The Nation Is Weeping. Louise S. Upham.
The Nation Is Weeping.

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The Nation Is Weeping.

Providence, Rhode Island: Published by Theodore B. Stayner, 22 Wickenden St., [1865]. Song sheet, 21 x 12.5 cm. CONDITION: Several tiny punctures, small losses to publication note at bottom of text.

A song sheet mourning President Lincoln, set to Stephen Foster’s tune Under the Willow.

Upham’s lines crown Lincoln a “martyr” and call for national mourning: “Drape every dwelling in sable night: / Symbol of deep lamentation!” In addition, the song calls for “a garland of lilies white” to be wreathed for Lincoln—“Fair type of the hope of a nation.” The chorus exclaims—“Rest, rest! thy labor done! / Dirge of a nation now weeping: / Home, home! thy bright crown won! / Fruit of a golden life reaping.” Columbia is described as joining in with the nation, shedding “bitter” “tears.”

The song concludes with the image of the lowering of the American flag (whose “stars are dim”)—under which Lincoln is symbolically placed: “under that Flag he is sleeping. […] Under the loved Flag we lay thee down, / Green be thy bright fame forever.” Laid out thus, Lincoln is crowned by God “in realms where there’s sorrowing never.”

Louis Upham appears to have been related to Nathan Upham, author of Lincoln Lies Sleeping, which includes lines similar to a few in the present work.

REFERENCES: Lincoln Lies Sleeping at the British Library online

Item #5271

Price: $250.00

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