What was the title of the poem Abraham Lincoln said he loved best?

The poem Abraham Lincoln said he loved best was “Mortality,” by Scottish poet William Knox. It is also commonly identified by its opening line, “O, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?”

Lincoln encountered the poem as a young man and learned it by heart. According to the painter Francis Bicknell Carpenter, Lincoln later described it as a longtime favorite and said that a friend had first shown it to him. The poem’s meditation on human frailty, death, memory, and the fleeting nature of worldly status resonated strongly with Lincoln’s reflective temperament.

William Knox published “Mortality” in The Songs of Israel in 1824. Knox was born in Roxburghshire, Scotland, in 1789, and died in Edinburgh in 1825, long before Lincoln became president.

The title can cause confusion because reference works and editions may use either “Mortality” or the poem’s opening line. “Thanatopsis” was written by William Cullen Bryant, “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe, and “Paul Revere’s Ride” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; none was Lincoln’s identified favorite.