Nathan Kale's Statue

Pinioned and bound as he stood erect,
Smiling under the gallows tree
Thus let him stand, not vainly decked
For a courtier's immortality.
Just as he stood, with his brave breast bared,
And the fearless glance of his eye
Thrilling the wretches who "round him glared,
And showing him proud to die.
Just as he stood, so let him stand,
As he prayed for a score of lives,
To lay them down for his bleeding land,
What, strip him of ropes and gyves?
When the lord of life meets the lord of death,
And such a man is the prize
Just as they barter his dying breath,
Let him live before our eyes.
Aye. drape him just as he stood that hour
When his steadfast courage rose,
And, pinioned and gyved, the godlike pow'r
Of his cause made blench his foes.
No knotted ropes could his free soul bind,
No gibbet his heart appal
He was dying for freedom of humankind,
For America, first of all.
The steps of the heroes who bless the earth
Are led not in flowery ways,
They face the grime, and their glory-birth
Falls not upon festal days.
Their meat is hunger, and shame their priest
They look not on death as loss:
Yea, dearer than Christ at the Paschal feast
Is the naked Christ on the cross.