If freeing slaves will bring the Union back Then I will free them; if by freeing some And leaving some enslaved I help my cause, I will do that⁠—but should such freedom mean The wreckage of the Union that I serve I would not free a slave. O Will of God, I am a patient man, and I can wait Like an old gunflint buried in the ground While the slow years pile up like moldering leaves Above me, underneath the rake of Time, And turn, in time, to the dark, fruitful mold That smells of Sangamon apples, till at last There’s no sleep left there, and the steel event Descends to strike the live coal out of me And light the powder that was always there.