"While I struggled through the fight,
Albert was my sword and shield;
Till strange horror quench'd my sight,
And I fainted on the field.
"Slow awakening from that trance,
When my soul return'd to day,
Vanish'd were the fiends of France,-
But in Albert's blood I lay.

"Slain for me, his dearest breath
On my lips he did resign;
Slain for me, he snatch'd his death
From the blow that menaced mine.
"He had raised his dying head,

And was gazing on my face; As I woke, the spirit fled,

But I felt his last embrace."

SHEPHERD.

"Man of suffering! such a tale

Would bring tears from marble eyes!"

WANDERER.

"Ha! my daughter's cheek grows pale!"

WANDERER'S WIFE.

"Help! O help! my daughter dies!"

WANDERER.

"Calm thy transports, O my wife!

Peace! for these dear orphans' sake!"

WANDERER'S WIFE.

"O my joy, my hope, my life,

O my child, my child, awake!".

WANDERER.

"God! O God, whose goodness gives;

God! whose wisdom takes awaySpare my child."

SHEPHERD.

"She lives, she lives!"

WANDERER.

"Lives?-my daughter, didst thou say?

"God Almighty, on my knees,

In the dust will I adore

Thine unsearchable decrees;

-She was dead:-she lives once more."

WANDERER'S DAUGHTER.

"When poor Albert died, no prayer

Call'd him back to hated life:

O that I had perish'd there,

Not his widow, but his wife!"

WANDERER.

"Dare my daughter thus repine?
Albert, answer from above;
Tell me, are these infants thine,
Whom their mother does not love?"

WANDERER'S DAUGHTER, "Does not love!-my father, hear; Hear me, or my heart will break; Dear is life, but only dear

For my parents', children's sake.

"Many a mother, in despair,

Turning up the ghastly slain, Sought her son, her hero there,

Whom she long'd to seek in vain.

"Dark the evening shadows roll'd

On the eye that gleam'd in death; And the evening dews fell cold

On the lip that gasp'd for breath.

"As I gazed, an ancient dame, -She was childless by her look,With refreshing cordials came; Of her bounty I partook. "Then, with desperation bold,

Albert's precious corpse I bore On these shoulders weak and old, Bow'd with misery before.

"Albert's angel gave me strength,. As I stagger'd down the glen ; And I hid my charge at length

In its wildest, deepest den.

"Then, returning through the shade
To the battle scene, I sought,
'Mongst the slain, an axe and spade;

With such weapons FREEMEN fought.

"Scythes for swords our youth did wield, In that execrable strife: Ploughshares in that horrid field

Bled with slaughter, breathed with life.

"In a dark and lonely cave,

While the glimmering moon arose, Thus I dug my Albert's grave;

There his hallow'd limbs repose.

"Tears then, tears too long represt, Gush'd:-they fell like healing balm, Till the whirlwind in my breast

Died into a dreary calm.

"On the fresh earth's humid bed, Where my martyr lay enshrined, This forlorn, unhappy head,

Crazed with anguish, I reclined.

"But while o'er my weary eyes Soothing slumbers seem'd to creep. Forth I sprang, with strange surprise, From the clasping arms of sleep.

"For the bones of Albert dead Heaved the turf with horrid throes, And his grave beneath my head, Burst asunder ;-Albert rose !

"Ha! my son-my son,' I cried,

Wherefore hast thou left thy grave?" Fly, my father,' he replied;

'Save my wife-my children save.'

"In the passing of a breath

This tremendous scene was o'er: Darkness shut the gates of death, Silence seal'd them as before.

WANDERER.

"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:
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, Hebut distance mocks my sight, O thou great avenger, TIME!

Bring thy strangest birth to light."

SHEPHERD.

"Prophet! thou hast spoken well,

And I deem thy words divine: Now the mournful sequel tell Of thy country's woes and thine."

WANDERER.

"Though the moon's bewilder'd bark,

By the midnight tempest tost,

In a sea of vapours dark,

In a gulf of clouds was lost;

"Still my journey I pursued, Climbing many a weary steep, Whence the closing scene I view'd With an eye that could 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 burn'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 expiredNature seem'd extinct:-I fled.

*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.

"Fled; and, ere the noon of day,

Reach'd the lonely goat-herd's nest, Where my wife, my children layHusband-father-think the rest.”

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.

SHEPHERD.

"WANDERER, whither wouldst thou roam;
To what region far away
Bend thy steps to find a home,
In the twilight of thy day?"

WANDERER.

"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 th' 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'

SHEPHERD.

"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 nightfall of the tomb."

WANDERER.

"Though our parents 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.

"Mountains, can ye chain the will? Ocean, canst thou quench the heart? No; I feel my country still,

LIBERTY! where'er thou art.

"Thus it was in hoary time,

When our fathers sallied forth, Full of confidence sublime,

From the famine-wasted North.*

"Freedom, in a land of rocks
Wild as Scandinavia, give,
Power Eternal! where our flocks
And our little ones may live.'

"Thus they pray'd ;—a sacred hand Led them by a path unknown,

To that dear delightful land

Which I yet must call my own.
"To the vale of Switz they came,
Soon their meliorating toil
Gave the forests to the flame,

And their ashes to the soil.

"Thence their ardent labours spread, Till above the mountain snows Towering beauty show'd her head, And a new creation rose !

"So, in regions wild and wide,

We will pierce the savage woods, Clothe the rocks in purple pride,

Plough the valleys, tame the floods;

"Till a beauteous inland isle,

By a forest sea embraced, Shall make desolation smile

In the depth of his own waste.

There is a tradition among the Swiss, that they are descended from the ancient Scandinavians; among whom, in a remote age, there arose so grievous a famine, that it was determined in the assembly of the nation, that every tenth man and his family should quit their country, and seek a new possession. Six thousand, chosen by lot, thus emigrated at once from the North. They prayed to God to conduct them to a land like their own, where they might dwell in freedom and quiet, finding food for their families, and pasture for their cattle. God, says the tradition, led them to a valley among the Alps, where they cleared away the forests, built the town of Switz, and afterwards peopled and cultivated the cantons of Uri and Underwalden.

"There, unenvied and unknown,

We shall dwell secure and free, In a country all our own,

In a land of liberty."

SHEPHERD.

"Yet the woods, the rocks, the streams,
Unbeloved, shall bring to mind,
Warm with evening's purple beams,
Dearer objects left behind;

"And thy native country's song,
Caroll'd in a foreign clime,
When new echoes shall prolong,-
Simple, tender, and sublime;

"How will thy poor cheek turn pale,
And, before thy banish'd eyes,
Underwalden's charming vale

And thine own sweet cottage rise!"

WANDERER.

"By the glorious ghost of TELL;
By Mogarthen's awful fray;
By the field where Albert fell
In thy last and bitter day;

"Soul of Switzerland, arise!

-Ha! the spell has waked the dead:

From her ashes to the skies

Switzerland exalts her head.

"See the queen of mountains stand
In immortal mail complete,
With the lightning in her hand,

And the Alps beneath her feet.

"Hark! her voice: My sons, awake: Freedom dawns, behold the day: From the bed of bondage break,

"Tis your mother calls,-obey.' "At the sound, our fathers' graves,

On each ancient battle-plain, Utter groans, and toss like waves

When the wild blast sweeps the main.

"Rise, my brethren! cast away

All the chains that bind you slaves: Rise, your mother's voice obey,

And appease your fathers' graves.

"Strike!-the conflict is begun; Freemen, soldiers, follow me. Shout the victory is won,SWITZERLAND AND LIBERTY!"

SHEPHERD.

"Warrior, warrior, stay thine arm! Sheathe, O sheathe thy frantic sword!"

WANDERER.

"Ah! I rave-I faint-the charm Flies, and memory is restored.

"Yes, to agony restored

From the too transporting charm:Sleep for ever, O my sword!

Be thou wither'd, O mine arm!