Fettered on straw, with soldier guards, The tent-lamp trembling low, The morrow was his day of doom, That night a night of woe. And half the night the gallows sound Of hammers filled his ears, Like strokes upon a passing-bell, Telling his numbered years. His numbered years--alas! how brief! And Memory searched them back, Like one who searches, with a light, Upon a midnight track. The fields, the woods, the humming school, The idly-pondered lore, And the fair-fingered girl that shared His dinner at the door; His room, beneath the homestead eaves, Wherein he laid his head; His mother, come to take the light, And see him warm in bed. These, and their like, distinct and bright, Came back, and fired his brain With visions, all whose sweetness now Was but exalted pain. IV. 1. Ere silence droops her fluttering wing, The pang may all be past; And oft, of good men's latter hours, The easiest is their last. The morn was up, the flickering morn Of summer, towards the fall. "Bravely is all," the guardsman said; Said Hale, "God's grace is all." And now the Provost-Marshal came With soldiers--all was ripe; But out of Hale's tobacco, first, He filled and smoked a pipe. Forth passed the man, through all disguise, With look so sweet and high; He showed no sort of dread, at all, Of what it was to die. Come to the cart, whose doleful planks Beneath his feet did creak, He bowed, and looked about, and stood In attitude to speak. "Holloa! hoa! drummer, bring your drum, Play Yankee Doodle here-- Play, while we crack the rebel's neck." Earl Percy then drew near: "Provost," said he, "I shame at this. Let the lad have his say, Or you shall find who rules the camp;" And so he walked away. 2. "Soldiers," said Hale, "you see a man Whom Death must have and keep; And things there are, if I should think, I could not help but weep. "But since in darkness, evermore, God's providences hide, The bravely good, in every age, By faith have bravely died. "That man who scorns his present case, For glorious things to be, I hold that in his scorn he shows His soul's nobility. "Though George the Third completely scourge Our groaning lives away, It cannot, shall not be in vain That I stand here to-day. "Oh take the wings of noble thought! Run out the shapes of Time, To where these clouds shall lift, nor leave A stain upon the clime.