The Suicide’s Soliloquy

Abraham Lincoln was so Emo and he never carried a pocket knife.

In 1835, Abraham Lincoln wanted to kill himself after the death of his first love, Ann Rutledge. Three years later, Abraham Lincoln anonymously published a poem titled, “The Suicide’s Soliloquy” in The Sangamo Journal, a four-page Whig-newspaper in Springfield, Illinois.

The introduction reads: “The following lines were said to have been found near the bones of a man supposed to have committed suicide in a deep forest on the flat branch of the Sangamon some time ago.”

The Suicide’s Soliloquy

Here, where the lonely hooting owl
Sends forth his midnight moans,
Fierce wolves shall o’er my carcase growl,
Or buzzards pick my bones.

No fellow-man shall learn my fate,
Or where my ashes lie;
Unless by beasts drawn round their bait,
Or by the ravens’ cry.

Yes! I’ve resolved the deed to do,
And this the place to do it:
This heart I’ll rush a dagger through,
Though I in hell should rue it!