Classic Poem

Lad ! I overlap thy life with mine;
Art thou curious, prying and revering?
Lift the lid, — the coffin be not fearing!
Within my Koran book my prophet's bones calcine.
Three score and ten of years I drew bow line
And shot my arrows into friend and foe;
Gather them as the Indian by his bow
And arrows lies! Nothing will I refine!
What for the day seemed true the sun marked so,
And before night's small prayer I wrote not libertine.
A barbarous age encaged me for its king,
Its captive eagle silenced by its vote,
Each night I pulled a feather from my wing
And dipped it in my cage-chilled blood and wrote.
For thine eye, boy, did I in slavery snatch
Moments of years to trace the dull events:
Judge thou my book when thou shalt read its match
Writ by another of thy Presidents!