Blues for number 25

With lengthy strides
you followed the Emancipator's pace.
You offered to the continent below
an iron embrace,
a lovely girdle made of rail, and lo,
a love fraternal that abides,
though time and malice may efface
you from our memory even so.

About your life
there's little said, and now your fleeting fame
is just a dry pursuit for learned men.
And our most mighty mountain, like a loving wife,
assumed your name,
then changed her mind, and gave it up again.
Disdain for your outmoded kind is rife.
I love you just the same.