His Meditation

[dukealien]

His Meditation


Abraham Lincoln
wishing as always
to know what’s best for
his wounded country
wondered what it should
do for the Negroes
(as he would call them)
he’d freed from bondage.

His never-finished
thinking determined
that there should be some
safe reservation
like the Sea Islands
Santo Domingo
or on the Gold Coast
where they could live in
free segregation.

In his great heart he
knew the right answer:
treating each man as
equal in worth - but
honest, admitted
that he could never
happily live with
Negroes as neighbors.

Knowing this he knew
his countrymen would
tolerate freedmen
badly because he
felt himself no more
virtuous than a
Midwestern man which
was but the truth.

[busker]

“Great heart” bring unintentionally ironic here
For a poem that ostensibly attempts to tell the facts, there’s a suspiciously large amount of sympathetic value judgement

[matsunosuperfan]

His Meditation


Abraham Lincoln
wishing as always
to know what’s best for
his wounded country
wondered what it should
do for the Negroes
(as he would call them)
he’d freed from bondage.

His never-finished
thinking determined
that there should be some
safe reservation
like the Sea Islands
Santo Domingo
or on the Gold Coast
where they could live in
free segregation.

In his great heart he
knew the right answer:
treating each man as
equal in worth - but
honest, admitted
that he could never
happily live with
Negroes as neighbors.

Knowing this he knew
his countrymen would
tolerate freedmen
badly because he
felt himself no more
virtuous than a
Midwestern man which
was but the truth.

Poem reads as a deliberately prosaic setup for a punchline that never comes
the experience was not unlike eating cold pea soup

ok I am being hyperbolic to make my point. the las stanza does gain some heat but it's not enough to excuse the boring lecture that precedes it.

"his never-finished thinking" is a standout line to cut

"felt himself no more virtuous than a Midwestern man" this is pretty darn good, why not just let the speaker be this sharp all the time?