Record Data
Source citation
Copybook Verses, in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (8 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), 1: 2, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/.
Type
Miscellaneous
Date Certainty
Exact
Transcriber
Transcription adapted from The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953), edited by Roy P. Basler
Adapted by Matthew Pinsker, Dickinson College
Transcription date
Transcription
The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.
Copybook Verses
[1824-1826]
Abraham Lincoln
his hand and pen
he will be good but
god knows When
Abraham Lincoln his hand and pen he will be good
but god knows When Time What an emty vaper
tis and days how swift they are swift as an indian arr[ow]
Meter
fly on like a shooting star the presant moment Just [is here]
then slides away in h[as]te that we [can] never say they ['re ours]
but [only say] th[ey]'re past
Abraham Lincoln is my nam[e]
And with my pen I wrote the same
I wrote in both hast and speed
and left it here for fools to read
