Still my journey I pursued, STANTZ-a melancholy pyre! And her hamlets, blazed behind, Flaming piles, where'er I turn'd, The town of STANTZ, and the surrounding villages, were burnt by the French on the night after the battle of UNDERWALDEN, and the beautiful valley was converted into a wilderness. While the red illumined flood, Seem'd a lake of living blood, 'Midst the mountains far away, At the sight my brain was fired, Fled; and, ere the noon of day, Where my wife, my children lay Husband! Father! -think the rest." END OF THE FIFTH PART. THE WANDERER OF SWITZERLAND. PART VI. The Wanderer informs the Shepherd, that, after the example of many of his countrymen flying from the Tyranny of France, it is his intention to settle in some remote Province of America, Shep. "Wanderer! whither wouldst thou roam Bend thy steps to find a home, Wand. "In the twilight of my day Far beyond the Atlantic floods, Stretch'd beneath the evening sky, Realms of mountains, dark with woods, In Columbia's bosom lie. There, in glens and caverns rude, Silent since the world began, Dwells the virgin Solitude, Unbetray'd by faithless man; Where a tyrant never trod, -Thither, thither would I roam; They shall find a grave for me. Though my fathers' bones afar In their native land repose, Yet beneath the twilight star Soft on mine the turf shall close. Though the mould that wraps my clay, When this storm of life is o'er, Never since creation lay On a human breast before ; Yet in sweet communion there, When she follows to the dead, Shall my bosom's partner share Her poor husband's lowly bed. ALBERT'S babes shall deck our grave, And my daughter's duteous tears Bid the flowery verdure wave Through the winter-waste of years." |