“They may hang him on the gibbet; they may raise the victor's cryWhen 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 watchword from Missouri to the sea,And his planting find its reaping in the birthday of the Free!”