But for Liberty and Manhood, comes, the sacrifice of Love.
They may hang him on the gibbet; they may raise the victor’s cry,
When they see him darkly swinging like a speck against the sky;—
Ah! the dying of a hero, that the right may win its way,
Is but sowing seed for harvest in a warm and mellow May!
Now his story shall be whispered by the firelight’s evening glow,
And in fields of rice and cotton, when the hot noon passes slow,
Till his name shall be a watch-word from Missouri to the sea,
And his planting find its reaping in the birthday of the Free!
Christ, the crucified, attend him, weak and erring though he be;