-lm needs to be at the end of the command, most likely in the first case with the literal the compiler is optimizing out the call to any function and therefore does not need to link against the library. This is called constant folding and for example we can see in the gcc docs on Other Built-in Functions Provided by GCC says:
GCC includes built-in versions of many of the functions in the
standard C library. The versions prefixed with __builtin_ are always
treated as having the same meaning as the C library function even if
you specify the -fno-builtin option. (see C Dialect Options) Many of
these functions are only optimized in certain cases; if they are not
optimized in a particular case, a call to the library function is
emitted.
