SHEPHERD.

“ Wildly scatter'd o'er the plain,

WANDERER, Bloodier still the battle grew ;

“ Hail !all hail! the patriot's grave, Oye spirits of the slain, Slain on those your prowess slew :

Valour's venerable bed :

Hail! the memory of the brave, “Who shall now your deeds relate ?

Hail! the spirits of the dead.
Ye that fell unwept, unknown;
Mourning for your country's fate,

“ Time their triumphs shall proclaim,
But rejoicing in your own.

And their rich reward be this,

Immortality of fame, “ Virtue, valour, naught avail'd

Immortality of bliss.”
With so merciless a foe;
When the nerves of heroes fail'd,
Cowards then could strike a blow.

“ On that melancholy plain,

In that conflict of despair, “ Cold and keen th' assassin's blade

How was poble Albert slain ?
Smote the father to the ground;

How didst thou, old warrior, fare ?""
Through the infant's breast convey'd
To the mother's heart a wound.*

WANDERER.

“ In the agony of strife, “Underwalden thus expired;

Where the heart of battle bled,
But at her expiring flame,
With fraternal feeling fired,

Where his country lost her life,

Glorious Albert bow'd his head.
Lo, a band of Switzers came.t

“ When our phalanx broke away,
“ From the steeps beyond the lake,
Like a winter's weight of snow,

And our stoutest soldiers fell,

Where the dark rocks dimm'd the day,
When the huge lavanges break,
Devastating all below.

Scowling o'er the deepest dell;

“ There, like lions old in blood, “ Down they rush'd with headlong might, Swifter than the panting wind;

Lions rallying round their den,

Albert and his warriors stood;
All before them fear and Alight,

We were few, but we were men.
Death and silence all behind.

“ Breast to breast we fought the ground, “ How the forest of the foe

Arm to arm repell’d the foe;
Bow'd before the thunder strokes,

Every motion was a wound,
When they laid the cedars low,

And a death was every blow.
When they overwhelm'd the oaks.

“ Thus the clouds of sunset beam “ Thus they hew'd their dreadful way ;

Warmer with expiring light;
Till, by numbers forced to yield,

Thus autumnal meteors stream
Terrible in death they lay,

Redder through the darkening night.
The AVENGERS OF THE FIELD.”

“ Miracles our champions wrought

Who their dying deeds shall tell !
PART IV.

O how gloriously they fought!

How triumphantly they fell! The Wanderer relates the circumstances attending the

“ One by one gave up the ghost,
death of Albert.

Slain, not conquer'd,—they died free.
SHEPHERD.

Albert stood,-himself a host: “ PLEDGE the memory of the brave,

Last of all the Swiss was he.
And the spirits of the dead;

“So, when night with rising shade Pledge the venerable grave,

Climbs the Alps from steep to steep,
Valour's consecrated bed.

Till, in hoary gloom array'd, “ Wanderer, cheer thy drooping soul,

All the giant mountains sleep;
This inspiring goblet take;

“ High in heaven their monarch* stands, Drain the deep delicious bowl,

Bright and beauteous from afar,
For thy martyr'd brethren's sake.

Shining unto distant lands

Like a new-created star. * An indiscriminate massacre followed the battle.

+ Two hundred self-devoted heroes from the canton of * Mont Blanc; which is so much higher than the sur. Switz arrived, at the close of the balle, lo the aid of their rounding Alps, that it catches and retains the beams of brethren of Underwalden; and perished to a man, after the sun twenty minutes earlier and later than they, and, having slain thrice their number.

crowned with eternal ice, may be seen from an immense The lavanges are tremendous torrents of melting snow distance purpling with his eastern light, or crimsoned that lumble from the lops of the Alps, and deluge all the with his setting glory while mist and obscurity rest on the country before them.

mountains beluw. 73

3 C