Lyrics
[Intro]
Four score and seven years ago so began the message
Of a war-weary President Abraham Lincoln
A message written on the back of an envelope on a train
On the way to dedicate a battlefield
Where men from the north and south had died at Gettysburg Pennsylvania
[Verse]
Four score and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth on this continent
A new nation conceived in liberty
And dedicated in the proposition that all men are created equal
Now we’re engaged in a great Civil War
Testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived
And so dedicated can long endure
We are met on a great battlefield of that war
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field
As the final resting place for those who here gave their lives
That that nation might live
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate
We cannot hallow this ground
For the brave men living and dead who struggled here
Have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract
The world will little notice or long remember what we say here
But it can never forget what they did here
It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work
Which they who fought here have thus so nobly advanced
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us
That from these honored dead we take increased devotion
To that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion
That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died
In vain and that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom
And the government of the people by the people and for the people
Shall not perish from the earth