PART V.] THE WANDERER OP SWITZERLAND.

Wand. Ay!—my heart, unwont to yield,

Quickly quell'd the strange affright,
And undaunted o'er the field
I began my lonely flight.

Loud the gusty night-wind blew,
Many an awful pause between;
Fits of light and darkness flew
Wild and sudden o'er the scene.

For the moon's resplendent eye
Gleams of transient glory shed;
And the clouds, athwart the sky,
Like a routed army fled.

Sounds and voices fill'd the vale,
Heard alternate loud and low;
Shouts of victory swell'd the gale,
But the breezes murmur'd woe.

As I climb'd the mountain's side,
Where the lake and valley meet,
All my country's power and pride
Lay in ruins at my feet.

On that grim and ghastly plain,
Underwalden's heart-strings broke,
When she saw her heroes slain,
And her rocks receive the yoke.

On that plain, in childhood's hours,
From their mothers' arms set free,
Oft those heroes gather'd flowers,
Often chased the wandering bee.

On that plain, in rosy youth,
They had fed their fathers' flocks,
Told their love, and pledged their truth,
In the shadow of those rocks.

There with shepherd's pipe and song,
In the merry mingling dance,
Once they led their brides along,
Now!—Perdition seize thee, France!

Shep. Heard not Heaven th' accusing cries
Of the blood that smoked around,
While the life-warm sacrifice
Palpitated on the ground!

Wand. Wrath in silence heaps his store,
To confound the guilty foe;
But the thunder will not roar
Till the flash has struck the blow.

Vengeance, vengeance will not stay I
It shall burst on Gallia's head,
Sudden as the judgment-day
To the unexpecting dead.

From the Revolution's flood
Shall a fiery dragon start;
He shall drink his mother's blood,
He shall eat his father's heart;

Nurst by anarchy and crime,
He—but distance mocks my sight!
0 thou great avenger, Time!
Bring thy strangest birth to light.

She;). Prophet! thou hast spoken well,
And I deem thy words divine:
Now the mournful sequel tell
Of thy country's woes and thine.

yVand. Though the moon's bevvilder'd bark.
By the midnight tempest tost,
In a sea of vapours dark,
In a gulf of clouds was lost;

PART V.l THE WANDERER OF SWITZERLAND

Still my journey I pursued,
Climbing many a weary steep,
Whence the closing scene I view' d
With an eye that would not weep.

Stantz—a melancholy pyre'
And her hamlets, blazed behind,
With ten thousand tongues of fire,
Writhing, raging in the wind.

Flaming piles, where'er I turn'd,
Cast a grim and dreadful light;
Like funereal lamps they bum'd
In the sepulchre of night;—

While the red illumined flood,
With a hoarse and hollow roar,
Seem'd a lake of living blood,
Wildly weltering on the shore. ,

'Midst the mountains far away,
Soon I spied the sacred spot,
Whence a slow consuming ray
Glimmer' d from my native cot.

At the sight my brain was fired,
And afresh my heart's wounds bled .
Still I gazed!—the spark expired—
Nature seem'd extinct!—I fled.

Fled, and, ere the noon of day,
Reach'd the lonely goatherd's nest,
Where my wife, my children lay—
Husband! father!—think the rest.

The Wanderer informs the Shepherd, that, after the example of many ol his Countrymen flying from the tyranny of France, it is his intentioD to settle in some remote province of America.

Shep. Wanderer! whither wouldst thou roam?
To what region far away
Bend thy steps to find a home,
In the twilight of thy day?

Wand. In the twilight of my day

I am hastening to the West:
There my weary limbs to lay,
Where the sun retires to rest.

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,
Where a slave was never known,
But where Nature worships God
In the wilderness alone ;—

Thither, thither would I roam;
There my children may be free:
I for them will find a home,
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.

Shep. Long before thy sun descend,

May thy woes and wanderings cease!
Late and lovely be thine end;
Hope and triumph, joy and peace!

As our lakes, at day's decline,
Brighten through the gathering gloom,
May thy latest moments shine
Through the night-fall of the tomb!

Wand. Though our Parent perish'd here,
Like the Phoenix on her nest,
Lo! new-fledged her wings appear.
Hovering in the golden West.

Thither shall her sons repair,
And, beyond the roaring main,
Find their native country there,
Find their Switzerland again!