Abraham Lincoln Suicide Poem?

[Richard Lawrence Miller]

I believe the poem was simply a literary exercise by Lincoln. At that time he was a member of a writers group in Springfield, and members shared their productions with one another. Revealing intimate thought to the public, even anonymously, would have been contrary to his personality, even if his mood were bleak at the time the poem was written. But sharing a work in which he felt pride would have been comfortable for him, even though he didn't take public credit for his poetry.

Regarding that, perhaps he felt that writing poetry would have been inconsistent with a public reputation as a tough politician. Indeed, political consequences of publishing a poem that expressed suicidal thoughts are another reason to believe the poem wasn't autobiographical, even if his own experiences with depression helped provide the poem's emotional power.

Note, too, that at the poem's conclusion the narrator reports that he has committed suicide, another reason that the item shouldn't be taken literally as Lincoln speaking about himself. Dead men tell no tales.

For more, see pages 224 and following in volume two of my Lincoln and His World.