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The cortege passed to the left side of the Capitol, and entering the
great gates, passed to the grand stairway, opposite the splendid dome,
where the coffin was disengaged and carried up the ascent. It was posted
under the bright concave, now streaked with mournful trappings, and left
in state, watched by guards of officers with drawn swords. This was a
wonderful spectacle, the man most beloved and honored in the ark of the
republic. The storied paintings representing eras in its history were
draped in sable, through which they seemed to cast reverential glances
upon the lamented bier. The thrilling scenes depicted by Trumbull, the
commemorative canvases of Leutze, the wilderness vegetation of Powell,
glared from their separate pedestals upon the central spot where lay the
fallen majesty of the country. Here the prayers and addresses of the
noon were rehearsed and the solemn burial service read. At night the
jets of gas concealed in the spring of the dome were lighted up, so that
their bright reflection masses of burning light, like marvelous haloes,
upon the little box where so much that we love and honor rested on its
way to the grave. And so through the starry night, in the fane of the
great Union he had strengthened and recovered, the ashes of Abraham
Lincoln, zealously guarded, are now reposing. The sage, the citizen, the
patriot, the man, has reached all the eminence that life can give the
worthy or the ambitious. The hunted fugitive who struck through our
hearts to slay him, should stand beside his stately bier to see how
powerless are bullets and blades to take the real life of any noble man!
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