"all men are created equal"
to a new nation,
upon this continent,

the proposition
conceived in liberty,
that our fathers
brought forth,
and dedicated
Four score
and seven years ago


Now engaged
testing
any nation so conceived,
can long endure.

a great civil war,

a great battle field
so dedicated,

We are met
we are in
that war.
and
We come to dedicate
a final resting place
for those
that the nation might live.

as that nation,
whether on
or
a portion of it,
who died here,
we may, do.

we shall
in all propriety
in a larger sense,
we can not
dedicate –
hallow,
nor
consecrate –

we
of our poor power
will long remember
this ground –

The brave men,
struggled here,
But,
living and dead,
far above
The world
who have hallowed it,

This we add
to say here;
or detract.
can not forget

we can never
little note,
what they did here.

that while it
is rather
for us,

what dedicated
to the task
the living,
remaining before us –
take increased devotion
from great honored dead
we here be
to that cause
which they here,
highly resolve
shall not have died
for the last full measure of devotion –

It that, these
these dead
gave the nation,
not in vain;
a birth of freedom,
and we here that shall have
that new government
of the people
by the people
for the people,
can not perish
from the earth.



The Gettysburg Address;
Original text and form by President Abraham Lincoln

02/04/2002

Posted on 02/04/2002
Copyright © 2024 William P Strucke