Gettysburg Address
Lord's prayer
This land
America
Declaration of independence
Shakes

Gettysburg Address

Abraham Lincoln

November 19, 1863

  1. 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.
  2. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.
  3. We are met on a great battle field of that war.
  4. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live.
  5. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
  6. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground.
  7. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.
  8. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
  9. It is for us the living, rather, to be here dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
  10. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -
    • A- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion
    • B- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -
    • C- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and
    • D- that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 
SONNET XXIX
When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising)
From sullen earth, sings hymns and Heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with Kings.

William Shakespeare