| I LOOKED like Abraham Lincoln. | |
| I was one of you, Spoon River, in all fellowship, | |
| But standing for the rights of property and for order. | |
| A regular church attendant, | |
| Sometimes appearing in your town meetings to warn you | 5 |
| Against the evils of discontent and envy, | |
| And to denounce those who tried to destroy the Union, | |
| And to point to the peril of the Knights of Labor. | |
| My success and my example are inevitable influences | |
| In your young men and in generations to come, | 10 |
| In spite of attacks of newspapers like the Clarion; | |
| A regular visitor at Springfield, | |
| When the Legislature was in session, | |
| To prevent raids upon the railroads, | |
| And the men building up the state. | 15 |
| Trusted by them and by you, Spoon River, equally | |
| In spite of the whispers that I was a lobbyist. | |
| Moving quietly through the world, rich and courted. | |
| Dying at last, of course, but lying here | |
| Under a stone with an open book carved upon it | 20 |
| And the words ”Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” | |
| And now, you world-savers, who reaped nothing in life | |
| And in death have neither stones nor epitaphs, | |
| How do you like your silence from mouths stopped | |
| With the dust of my triumphant career? | 25 |