Not 'mid the lightning of the stormy fight,
Not in the rush upon the vandal foes,
Did kingly Death, with his resistless might,
Lay the great leader low.

His warrior soul its earthy shackles broke,
In the full sunshine of a peaceful town;
When all the storm was hushed, the trusty oak
That propped our cause went down.

Though his alone the blood that flecked the ground,
Recording all his grand heroic deeds,
Freedom herself is writhing with the wound,
And all the country bleeds.

He entered not the nation's promised land
At the red belching of the cannon's mouth,
But broke the house of bondage with his hand -
The Moses of the South.

O gracious God! not gainless is the loss;
A glorious sunbeam gilds thy sternest frown;
And while his country staggers with the cross,
He rises with the crown!