There have been words, which earth grew pale | High hopes o'erthrown!-It is, when lands rejoice, to hear, Breathed from the cavern's misty chambers nigh: There have been voices, through the sunny sky, And the pine-woods, their choral hymn-notes sending, And reeds and lyres, their Dorian melody, With incense-clouds around the temple blending, And throngs, with laurel-boughs, before the altar bending. There have been treasures of the seas and isles Brought to the day-god's now forsaken throne: Thunders have pealed along the rock-defiles, When the far-echoing battle-horn made known That foes were on their way!--the deep-wind's Fear ye the festal hour! When mirth o'erflows, then tremble !—'T was a night Of gorgeous revel, wreaths, and dance, and light, When through the regal bower The trumpet pealed, ere yet the song was done, And there were shrieks in golden Babylon, And trampling armies, ruthless in their power. The marble shrines were crowned: Young voices, through the blue Athenian sky, And Dorian reeds, made summer-melody, And censers waved around; And lyres were strung, and bright libations poured, When, through the streets, flashed out the avenging sword, Fearless and free, the sword with myrtles bound !* Through Rome a triumph passed. With shout and trumpet-blast. And many a Dryad's bower Had lent the laurels, which in waving play, Stirred the warm air, and glistened round his way, As a quick-flashing shower. 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! Away, vain phantasies!-doth less of power Dwell round thy summit, or thy cliffs invest, Though in deep stillness now, the ruin's flower Wave o'er the pillars mouldering on thy breast? -Lift through the free blue heavens thine arrowy crest! Let the great rocks their solitude regain! No Delphian lyres now break thy noontide rest With their full chords :-but silent be the strain! Thou hast a mightier voice to speak th' Eternal's reign!* THE FESTAL HOUR. WHEN are the lessons given That shake the startled earth ?-When wakes the foe, Through his fair halls a cry of anguish rungWo for the dead!--the father's broken flower! 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 Shook Alexandria through her streets that night, • The sword of Harmodius. Paulus Æmilius, one of whose sons died a few days be While 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 Antony, of the supernatural sounds heard in the streets of Alexandria, the night before Antony's death. Bright 'midst its vineyards lay The fair Campanian city, with its towers Have veiled the sword!-Red wines have sparkled fast And temples gleaming through dark olive-bowers, From venomed goblets, and soft breezes passed, Clear in the golden day; Joy was around it as the glowing sky, A cloud came o'er the face Of Italy's rich heaven!-its crystal blue 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, With fatal perfume, through the revel's bower. Twine the young glowing wreath! But pour not all your spirit in the song, Which through the sky's deep azure floats along, Like summer's quickening breath! The ground is hollow in the path of mirth, Oh! far too daring seems the joy of earth, So darkly pressed and girdled in by death! 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 the bright spears and bucklers of the walls, The high wood-fires were blazing in their halls; But not for them-they slept-their feast was o'er! Fear ye the festal hour! Ay, tremble when the cup of joy o'erflows! Tame down the swelling heart!--the bridal rose, And the rich myrtle's flower and many of thein 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. THE wine-month* shone in its golden prime, And the red grapes clustering hung, 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 'Midst the ancient rocks was blown, ashes, which covered the city, descended. With a thousand of their own. ↑ Stonehenge, said by some traditions to have been erected Till the Alps replied to that voice of war, 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. Wine-month, the German name for October. And through the forest glooms And the winds were tossing knightly plumes, In Hasli's* wilds there was gleaming steel, As the host of the Austrian passed; And the Schreckhorn'st rocks, with a savage peal, Made mirth of his clarion's blast. 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, 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 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, 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 Proud crests and pennons lay 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 Lauwine, the Swiss name for the avalanche. ↑ William Tell's name is particularly mentioned amongs 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, 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! But, from the soaring Alps, the stranger's eye Haste! form your lines again, ye brave and true! Haste, haste! your triumphs and your joys suspending! Th' invader comes; your banners raise anew, Oh! thou devoted land! that canst not rear Gorsedd, or the stone of assembly), in the centre. The sheathing of a sword upon this stone was the ceremony which announced the opening of a Gorsedd, or meeting. The bards always stood in their uni-coloured robes, with their heads and feet uncovered, within the circle of federation.-See Owen's Translation of the Heroic Elegies of Llyware Hen. WHERE met our bards of old?-the glorious throng, They of the mountain and the battle-song? They met-where woods made moan o'er warriors' graves, And where the torrent's rainbow spray was cast, Are these infatuate too? Oh! who hath known Well hath it marked him—and ordained the hour Are we not creatures of one hand divine? THE MEETING OF THE BARDS. WRITTEN FOR AN EISTEDDVOD, OR MEETING OF WELSH BARDS. Held in London, May 22d, 1822. The Gorseddau, or meetings of the British bards, were anciently ordained to be held in the open air, on some conspicuous situation, whilst the sun was above the horizon; or, according to the expression employed on these occasions, "in the face of the sun, and in the eye of light." The places set apart for this purpose were marked out by a circle of stones, called the circle of federation. The presiding bard stood on a large stone (Maen the sun's face, beneath the eye of light, And, baring unto heaven each noble head, Stood in the circle, where none else might tread. Well might their lays be lofty!-soaring thought From Nature's presence tenfold grandeur caught: Well might bold Freedom's soul pervade the strains, Which startled eagles from their lone domains, Whence came the echoes to those numbers high? And from the watch-towers on the heights of snow, Thence, deeply mingling with the torrent's roar, Carnedd, a stone-barrow, or cairn. ↑ Cromlech, a Druidical monument, or altar. The word means a stone of covenant. The ancient British chiefa frequently harangued their followers from small artificial mounts of turf.-Sec Pennant |