Lindsay’s father was a physician, who urged his son to study medicine, but the son discovered that he did not want to be a doctor. He dropped out of Hiram College and studied for a time at the Chicago Art Institute and later at the New York School of Art.
While in New York, Lindsay started writing poetry. He would print out copies of his poems and sell them on the street. He enjoyed a fairly high level of recognition for his writing, and particularly for his performances of his works. He believed that poetry was to be heard more than read, and his lively concerts brought him a wide audience.
“Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight’’
One of his most noted poems takes as its subject the sixteenth president of the United States. Titled “Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight,” with the subtitle “In Springfield, Illinois,” the poem consists of eight stanzas each with the rime scheme ABCB.
First and Second Stanzas
In the opening stanza, the speaker declares that “a mourning figure walks” near the courthouse, and this is a “portentous” event that needs to be reported. In the second stanza, the speaker enumerates other places where the figure has been seen walking: by the home where the figure once lived and where his children played, in the market place “on the well-worn stones.” And he “stalks until the dawn-stars burn away,” thus the title Lincoln “walks at midnight.”
Third and Fourth Stanzas
The third stanza describes the figure’s appearance: bronze, lank wearing a black suit and top-hat. These characteristics, the speaker claims, “make him the quaint great figure that men love.” And he adds that the figure is “The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.” This description makes it quite clear that the figure is Lincoln.
In the fourth stanza, the speaker surmises that Lincoln is worried and restless and can’t remain in his grave; he has to come join the other people of the town who also “toss and lie awake.” And because the restless living people are kept awake by worries, they see the long dead figure walking among them.
Fifth and Sixth Stanzas
The speaker then reasons why Lincoln would be distressed and unable to rest: he is thinking about the conditions of the world. He thinks about “men and kings.” He stresses over the struggles of poor people and “sins of all the war-lords.”
These worldly problems “He carries on his shawl-draped shoulders now / The bitterness, the folly and the pain.” The figure paces the town at midnight because of the many worries that trouble the citizens.
Seventh and Eighth Stanzas
In the final two stanzas, the speaker makes the startling claim that Lincoln will not be able to rest until peace comes to the world: until Europe is free, and people wise up and bring long-lasting peace the world over “to Cornland, Alp, and Sea.”
The speaker claims that Lincoln is saddened that kings are still murdering, and all of his own good work here on earth seems “in vain.” And he ends with the question, “And who will bring white peace / That he may sleep upon his hill again?”
