THE CHIEFTAIN'S SON. YES, it is ours!--the field is won, A dark and evil field! Lift from the ground my noble son, And bear him homewards on his bloody shield! Let me not hear your trumpets ring, Swell not the battle-horn! Thoughts far too sad those notes will bring, When to the grave my glorious flower is borne! Speak not of victory!-in the name There is too much of wo! Hushed be the empty voice of Fame- Speak not of victory!-from my halls Within the dwelling of my sires The hearths will soon be cold, With me must die the beacon-fires That streamed at midnight from the mountainhold. And let them fade, since this must be, My lovely and my brave! Was thy bright blood poured forth for me, And is there but for stately youth a grave? Speak to me once again, my boy! Wilt thou not hear my call? Thou wert so full of life and joy, I had not dreampt of this-that thou couldst fall! Thy mother watches from the steep For thy returning plume; How shall I tell her that thy sleep Is of the silent house, th' untimely tomb? Thou didst not seem as one to die, With all thy young renown! -Ye saw his falchion's flash on high, In the mid-fight, when spears and crests went down! Slow be your march!-the field is won! Lift from the ground my noble son, And bear him homewards on his bloody shield. THE TOMBS OF PLATEA. FROM A PAINTING BY WILLIAMS. AND there they sleep!--the men who stood In arms before th' exulting sun, And bathed their spears in Persian blood, They sleep!-th' Olympic wreaths are dead, Th' Athenian lyres are hushed and gone; The Dorian voice of song is fled-Slumber, ye mighty! slumber deeply on! They sleep, and seems not all around The heavens are loaded with a breathless gloom. And stars are watching on their height, But dimly seen through mist and cloud, And still and solemn is the light Which folds the plain, as with a glimmering shroud. And thou, pale night-queen! here thy beams Thou seest no pastoral hamlet sleep, But by his dust, amidst the solitude. And be it thus!-What slave shall tread When their bright land sits weeping o'er her chains: Here, where the Persian clarion rung, And where the Spartan sword flashed high, From year to year swelled on by liberty! Here should no voice, no sound, be heard, Or the shrill trumpet, pealing up through heaven! Rest in your silent homes, ye brave! No harvest o'er your war-fields wave. THE VIEW FROM CASTRI. FROM A PAINTING BY WILLIAMS. THERE have been bright and glorious pageants here, Where now gray stones and moss-grown columns lie; * A single tree appears in Mr. Williams's impressive pic. And taught the earth how freedom might be won. ture. There have been words, which earth grew pale High hopes o'erthrown!-It is, when lands rejoice, When cities blaze, and lift th' exulting voice, And wave their banners to the kindling heaven! to hear, Breathed from the cavern's misty chambers nigh: And reeds and lyres, their Dorian melody, There have been treasures of the seas and isles moan Hath chilled the invader's heart with secret fear, career, From his bold hand have struck the banner and the spear. Fear ye the festal hour! When mirth o'erflows, then tremble !—'T was a Of gorgeous revel, wreaths, and dance, and light, The trumpet pealed, ere yet the song was done, The marble shrines were crowned: Young voices, through the blue Athenian sky, And lyres were strung, and bright libations poured, Fearless and free, the sword with myrtles bound!* The shrine hath sunk!—but thou unchanged That long array of glorious pageantry, art there! Mount of the voice and vision, robed with dreams! With shout and trumpet-blast. An empire's gems their starry splendor shed O'er the proud march; a king in chains was led; With thy dark-waving pines, and flashing A stately victor, crowned and robed, came last. f With inspiration yet; and each dim haze, And many a Dryad's bower Had lent the laurels, which in waving play, Or golden cloud which floats around thee, seems-O'er his own porch, meantime, the cypress hung, As with its mantle, veiling from our gaze The mysteries of the past, the gods of elder days! foe, Through his fair halls a cry of anguish rung— A sound of lyre and song, In the still night, went floating o'er the Nile, 'T was Antony that bade The joyous chords ring out!-but strains arose • The sword of Harmodius. Paulus Emilius, one of whose sons died a few days beWhile the friend sleeps!—When falls the traitor's fore, and another shortly after, his triumph on the conquest blow? When are proud sceptres riven, This, with the preceding, and several of the following pieces, have appeared in the Edinburgh Magazine. of Macedon, when Perseus, king of that country, was led in chains. See the description given by Plutarch, in his life of An tony, of the supernatural sounds heard in the streets of Alexandria, the night before Antony's death. Bright 'midst its vineyards lay Joy was around it as the glowing sky, A cloud came o'er the face Of Italy's rich heaven!-its crystal blue Of night, o'ershadowing space, Such things have been of yore, On the grape-clusters pour; And where the palms to spicy winds are waving, Turn we to other climes! Far in the Druid-Isle a feast was spread, Were chanted to the harp; and yellow mead But ere the giant-fane Cast its broad shadows on the robe of even, Hushed were the bards, and, in the face of Heaven, O'er that old burial-plain Flashed the keen Saxon dagger!-Blood was streaming, Where late the mead-cup to the sun was gleaming, Have veiled the sword!-Red wines have sparkled fast From venomed goblets, and soft breezes passed, SONG OF THE BATTLE OF MORGARTEN. "In the year 1315, Switzerland was invaded by Duke Leopold of Austria, with a formidable army. It is well attested, that this prince repeatedly declared he would trample the audacious rustics under his feet;' and that he had procured a large stock of cordage, for the purpose of binding their chiefs, and putting them to death. "The 15th October, 1315, dawned. The sun darted its first rays on the shields and armour of the advancing host; and this being the first army ever known to have attempted the frontiers of the cantons, the Swiss viewed its long line with various emotions. Montfort de Tettnang led the cavalry into the narrow pass, and soon filled the whole space between the mountain (Mount Sattel) and the lake. The fifty men on the eminence (above Morgarten) raised a sudden shout, and rolled down heaps of rocks and stones among the crowded ranks. The confederates on the mountain, perceiving the impression made by this attack, rushed down in close array, and fell upon the flank of the disordered column. With massy clubs they dashed in pieces the armour of the enemy, and dealt their blows and thrusts with long pikes. The narrowness of the defile admitted of no evolutions, and a slight frost having injured the road, the horses were impeded in all their motions; many leaped into the lake; all were startled; and at last the whole column gave way, and fell suddenly back on the infantry; and these last, as the nature of the country did not And Britain's hearths were heaped that night in allow them to open their files, were run over by the fugitives, vain. For they returned no more! They that went forth at morn, with reckless heart, In that fierce banquet's mirth to bear their part; And on the rushy floor, and many of them trampled to death. A general rout ensued, and Duke Leopold was, with much difficulty, rescued by a peasant, who led him to Winterthur, where the historian of the times saw him arrive in the evening, pale, sullen, and dismayed."-Planta's History of the Helvetic Confederacy. And the red grapes clustering hung, And the bright spears and bucklers of the walls,THE wine-month shone in its golden prime, Fear ye the festal hour! Ay, tremble when the cup of joy o'erflows! But a deeper sound through the Switzer's clime, Than the vintage music, rung. A sound, through vaulted cave, A sound, through echoing glen • Herculaneum, of which it is related, that all the inha-And a trumpet, pealing wild and far, bitants were assembled in the theatres, when the shower of ashes, which covered the city, descended. 1 Stonehenge, said by some traditions to have been erected to the memory of Ambrosius, an early British king; and by others, mentioned as a monumental record of the massacre of British chiefs here alluded to. 'Midst the ancient rocks was blown, Till the Alps replied to that voice of war, With a thousand of their own. • Wine-month, the German name for October. And through the forest glooms Flashed helmets to the day, And the winds were tossing knightly plumes, In Hasli's wilds there was gleaming steel, And the Schreckhorn'st rocks, with a savage peal, Up 'midst the Righit snows The stormy march was heard, With the charger's tramp, whence fire-sparks rose, And the leader's gathering word. But a band, the noblest band of all, Through the rude Morgarten strait, With blazoned streamers and lances tall, Moved onwards, in princely state. They came with heavy chains For the race despised so long-But amidst his Alp-domains, The herdsman's arm is strong! The sun was reddening the clouds of morn When storms at distance brood. There was stillness, as of deep dead night, While the Switzers gazed on the gathering might On wound those columns bright But they looked not to the misty height Where the mountain-people stood. The pass was filled with their serried power, And their steps had sounds like a thunder-shower There were prince and crested knight, Where the mountain-people stood. And the mighty rocks came bounding down, With a joyous whirl from the summit thrown- 'Hasli, a wild district in the canton of Berne. ↑ Schreckhorn, the peak of terror, a mountain in the canton of Berne. ↑ Righi, a mountain in the canton of Schwytz. They came, like lauwine* hurled When the echoes shout through the snowy world, And the pines are borne away. The fir-woods crashed on the mountain-side, Like hunters of the deer, They stormed the narrow dell, Was the arm of William Tell.t There was tumult in the crowded strait, With their pikes and massy clubs they brake And the war-horse dashed to the reddening lake, From the reapers of the field! The field-but not of sheaves- Strewn o'er it thick as the birch-wood leaves Oh! the sun in heaven fierce havoc viewed, And the leader of the war But the sons of the land which the freeman tills, Went back from the battle-toil, To their cabin-homes 'midst the deep green hills, There were songs and festal fires Laurine, the Swiss name for the avalanche. ↑ William Tell's name is particularly mentioned amongst the confederates at Morgarten. Forest-sea, the lake of the four cantons is also so called. Ask not!-the peasant at his cabin-door There mayst thou mark the boy, with earnest gaze, Wo to the victors and the vanquished! Wo! ground. But mightier bands, that lay in ambush there, Burst on their flight-and hark! the deepening sound Of fierce pursuit !—still nearer and more near, The day is won;-they fall-disarmed they yield, Why pour ye thus from your deserted homes, -Brothers, by brothers slain, lie low and cold- I hear the voice of joy, th' exulting cry! |