Honest Abe

(Editor’s note: this poem is reprinted from Harper’s Magazine, Volume 31, Issue 186, November, 1865. It was mailed in by an anonymous author who has never been caught.)

There was once a man, stood six foot ten.
Lived up in the hills since God knows when.
One winter morn he marched into town,
Pullin’ up tree stumps on the way down.

“Honest Abe,” said a withered old man aloud,
“With boots that tattered, would your father be proud?”

Would his father be proud indeed.

So with an Illinois grin and a backwoods grunt,
Ol’ Honest Abe gave his hoppers a jump;
Underneath his soles the frozen ground cracked,
And his weather-worn shoes were reduced to flack.

With his ten-storey hat and ten long fingers,
Honest Abe sure put that flack through the wringer!

He sure put that flack through the wringer.

“My, that’s impressive!” the villagers whooped
As Honest Abe Lincoln held out two pairs of boots!
With pure golden buckles and laces made of silk,
Abe donned one pair, traded the other for milk.

“You goin’ home now, Abe?” the old man waited.
But Abe just stomped off, his milk-hunger sated.

Sated by some 1% milk.