Lincoln: Poems in Memory of the Fallen President

Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth President of the United States, and the first to be assassinated. His place in history would have been solidified anyway, though, for being the President that held the Union together through a time of civil war, who championed emancipation and freedom, and has since been an emblematic leader of the United States.

Poems About Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s assassination was a tragic event for the American people, and poets of the time (and thence) wrote poems about Lincoln and his presidency to commemorate the man. Our look at poems about Lincoln begin with Walt Whitman and end with several poems by Carl Sandburg, with the voices of other famous and some lesser-known poets all paying homage to their fallen commander-in-chief - their captain.

• “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman
• “Abraham Lincoln, Born Feb. 12, 1809” by Walt Whitman
• “This Dust Was Once The Man” by Walt Whitman
• “Hush’d Be The Camps To-Day” by Walt Whitman
• “When Lilacs Last In The Door-Yard Bloom’d” by Walt Whitman
• “To Abraham Lincoln” by John J. Loud
• “Poem (Through The Dim Pageant Of The Years)” by Julia Ward Howe
• “Abraham Lincoln” by Berton Bellis
• “Death Of President Lincoln!” by James D. Gay
• “Abraham Lincoln Walks At Midnight” by Vachel Lindsay
• “Lincoln” by Vachel Lindsay
• “Abraham Lincoln” by William Cullen Bryant
• “Abraham Lincoln, From The Ode Recited At The Harvard Commemoration” by James Russell Lowell
• “Lincoln, The Man Of The People” by Edwin Markham
• “Anne Rutledge” by Edgar Lee Masters
• “The Master” by Edwin Arlington Robinson
• “A Farmer Remembers Lincoln” by Witter Bynner
• “The Lincoln-Child” by James Oppenheim
• “Lincoln” by John Gould Fletcher
• “Lincoln” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
• “Lincoln ” by Nancy Byrd Turner
• “Cool Tombs” by Carl Sandburg
• “In A Back Alley” by Carl Sandburg
• “Knucks” by Carl Sandburg
• “The People, Yes” by Carl Sandburg

Poems by Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln was known for being a President and a statesman, but he also was a poet, and this selection of poems starts with his earliest juvenilia - poems scribbled into Lincoln’s school books - and ends with his last known poem - about General Lee’s failure at Gettysburg, written from Lee’s point of view.

• “Abraham Lincoln” by Abraham Lincoln
• “Abraham Lincoln Is My Name” by Abraham Lincoln
• “The Bear Hunt” by Abraham Lincoln
• “My Childhood’s Home I See Again” by Abraham Lincoln
• “The Suicide’s Soliloquy” by Abraham Lincoln
• “To Linnie” by Abraham Lincoln
• “To Rosa” by Abraham Lincoln
• “Verse On Lee’s Invasion Of The North” by Abraham Lincoln

A Selection of Lincoln’s Favourite Poems

These poems were known to have been loved by Lincoln. The first poem in this list, “Mortality,” is thought to be Lincoln’s favourite poem.

• “Mortality” by William Knox
• “The Last Leaf” by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Articles Home