The Last Full Measure

From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

A verse from A Psalm of Life

Life is real! Life is earnest!
But the grave is not its goal;
'Dust thou art, to dust returnest'
Was not spoken of the soul.

Longfellow also penned the poem below during the long anguish of the Civil War:

And in despair, I bowed my head,
"There is no peace on earth," I said.
"For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, goodwill to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep;
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, goodwill to men."

High Flight
By John Gillespie MaGee, Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies in laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds--and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of--wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew--
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie MaGee was a fighter pilot during World War II. He was killed in action two weeks after penning this poem.

The Gettysburg Address

The Battle of Gettysburg occurred over three hot summer days, July 1 to July 3, 1863, around the small market town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It began as a skirmish but by its end, it involved 160,000 Americans.

Of the more than 2000 land engagements of the Civil War, Gettysburg ranks supreme. Although the Battle of Gettysburg did not end the war, nor did it attain any major war aim for the North or the South, it remains the great battle of the war. While many historians consider it the turning point of the Civil War in favor of the Union, one fact remains undisputed: More men fought and more men died at Gettysburg than in any other battle before or since on North American soil.

On Nov. 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered The Gettysburg Address during the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, on the site of the battle that bears its name. The main orator, Edward Everett of Massachusetts, gave a two-hour formal address. The President then took his turn. He spoke in his high, penetrating voice and the speech was over in less than three minutes. The brevity of his address surprised many in the audience and left others unimpressed.

Over time, it has become one of the most famous and most quoted of modern speeches. The final written version differs in detail from the spoken address, but the following transcription is the only one that Lincoln signed and it appears on the Lincoln Monument in Washington, D. C. It contains the words under God. This phrase seems to be the most notable difference among the existing forms. According to popular accounts of the day, Lincoln included the two words in question during his oral delivery. The masterful Gettysburg Address appears below:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate - we cannot hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Sources:

Gettysburg Welcome Center

Harvard Square Library

Gettysburg Discussion Group