That Tyranny shall quake to hear,
And leave his sons a hope, a fame,
They too will rather die than shame;
For Freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft is ever won.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page;
Attest it, many a deathless age:
While kings, in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid,
Thy heroes, though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tomb,
A mightier monument command,
The mountains of their native land!
There points thy Muse to stranger's eye
The graves of those that cannot die!
'T were long to tell, and sad to trace,
Each step from splendor to disgrace :
Enough, no foreign foe could quell
Thy soul, till from itself it fell;
Yes! self-abasement paved the way
To villain-bonds and despot sway.
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In vain, alas! in vain, ye gallant few! From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew :O, bloodiest picture in the book of Time! Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime; Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, Strength in her arms, nor merey in her woe! Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered
Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career;
Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shrieked - as Kosciusko fell!
THE storm is out; the land is roused;
Where is the coward who sits well housed?
Fie on thee, boy, disguised in curls,
Behind the stove, 'mong gluttons and girls!
A graceless, worthless wight thou must be;
No German maid desires thee,
No German song inspires thee,
No German Rhine-wine fires thee.
Forth in the van,
Swing the battle-sword who can !
When, we stand watching, the livelong night,
Through piping storms, till morning light,
Thou to thy downy bed canst creep,
And there in dreams of rapture sleep.
A graceless, worthless wight, etc.
When hoarse and shrill, the trumpet's blast, Like the thunder of God, makes our hearts beat
Thou in the theater lov'st to appear,
Where trills and quavers tickle the ear. A graceless, worthless wight, etc.
When the glare of noonday scorches the brain,
When our parched lips seek water in vain,
Thou canst make champagne corks fly
At the groaning tables of luxury.
A graceless, worthless wight, etc.
When we, as we rush to the strangling fight,
Send home to our true-loves a long "Good-night,"
Thou canst hie thee where love is sold,
And buy thy pleasure with paltry gold.
A graceless, worthless wight, etc.
When lance and bullet come whistling by,
And death in a thousand shapes draws nigh,
Thou canst sit at thy cards, and kill
King, queen, and knave with thy spadille.
A graceless, worthless wight, etc.
If on the red field our bell should toll,
Then welcome be death to the patriot's soul!
Thy pampered flesh shall quake at its doom,
And crawl in silk to a hopeless tomb.
A pitiful exit thine shall be;
No German maid shall weep for thee,
No German song shall they sing for thee,
No German goblets shall ring for thee.
Forth in the van,
Swing the battle-sword who can!
From the German of KÖRNER,
In arms the Austrian phalanx stood,
A living wall, a human wood!
A wall, where every conscious stone
Seemed to its kindred thousands grown;
A rampart all assaults to bear,
Till time to dust their frames should wear;
A wood, like that enchanted grove
In which with fiends Rinaldo strove,
Where every silent tree possessed
A spirit prisoned in its breast,
Which the first stroke of coming strife
Would startle into hideous life :
by CHARLES T. BROOKS. So dense, so still, the Austrians stood,
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A living wall, a human wood!
Impregnable their front appears,
All horrent with projected spears,
Whose polished points before them shine,
From flank to flank, one brilliant line,
Bright as the breakers' splendors run
Along the billows to the sun.
Opposed to these, a hovering band
Contended for their native land :
Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke
From manly necks the ignoble yoke,
And forged their fetters into swords,
On equal terms to fight their lords,
And what insurgent rage had gained
In many a mortal fray maintained:
Marshaled once more at Freedom's call,
They came to conquer or to fall,
Where he who conquered, he who fell,
Was deemed a dead, or living, Tell!
Such virtue had that patriot breathed,
So to the soil his soul bequeathed,
That wheresoe'er his arrows flew
Heroes in his own likeness grew,
And warriors sprang from every sod
Which his awakening footstep trod.
And now the work of life and death
Hung on the passing of a breath;
The fire of conflict burnt within,
The battle trembled to begin :
Yet, while the Austrians held their ground,
Point for attack was nowhere found;
Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed,
The unbroken line of lances blazed:
That line 't were suicide to meet,
And perish at their tyrants' feet,
How could they rest within their graves,
And leave their homes the homes of slaves?
Would they not feel their children tread
With clanging chains above their head?
It must not be this day, this hour,
Annihilates the oppressor's power;
All Switzerland is in the field,
She will not fly, she cannot yield, —
"Art thou a Lombard, my brother? Happy art Long she stood and gazed, and twice she tried at thou!" she cried, the name, And smiled like Italy on him: he dreamed in But two great crystal tears were all that faltered her face and died. and came.
Pale with his passing soul, she went on still to Only a tear for Venice? - she turned as in pasa second: sion and loss, He was a grave, hard man, whose years by dun- And stooped to his forehead and kissed it, as if she were kissing the cross. geons were reckoned.
Wounds in his body were sore, wounds in his Faint with that strain of heart, she moved on then to another, Stern and strong in his death. suffer, my brother?"
life were sorer. "Art thou a Romagnole?" lightnings before her.
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