Fly, and tread softly, dear!

Lest those who hate us hear

The sounds of thy light footsteps as they go.

THE DELIVERANCE OF VIENNA

TRANSLATED FROM VINCENZIO DA FILICAIA

(Published in the "Winter's Wreath," Liverpool, 1828)
"Le corde d'oro elette," &c.

THE chords, the sacred chords of gold,
Strike, O Muse in measure bold;

And frame a sparkling wreath of joyous songs
For that great God to whom revenge belongs.
Who shall resist his might,
Who marshals for the fight

Earthquake and thunder, hurricane and flame?
He smote the haughty race

Of unbelieving Thrace,

And turned their rage to fear, their pride to shame.
He looked in wrath from high,

Upon their vast array;

And, in the twinkling of an eye,
Tambour, and trump, and battle-cry,
And steeds, and turbaned infantry,

Passed like a dream away.

Such power defends the mansions of the just:
But, like a city without walls,

The grandeur of the mortal falls

Who glories in his strength, and makes not God his

trust.

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The proud blasphemers thought all earth their own;
They deemed that soon the whirlwind of their ire
Would sweep down tower and palace, dome and spire,
The Christian altars and the Augustan throne°.
And soon, they cried, shall Austria bow
To the dust her lofty brow.

The princedoms of Almayne°
Shall wear the Phrygian chain;

In humbler waves shall vassal Tiber roll;
And Rome a slave forlorn,

Her laurelled tresses shorn,

Shall feel our iron in her inmost soul.
Who shall bid the torrent stay?
Who shall bar the lightning's way?
Who arrest the advancing van
Of the fiery Ottoman?

As the curling smoke-wreaths fly
When fresh breezes clear the sky,
Passed away each swelling boast
Of the misbelieving host.
From the Hebrus rolling far
Came the murky cloud of war,
And in shower and tempest dread

But not for vaunt or threat

Didst Thou, O Lord, forget

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339

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Burst on Austria's 'fenceless head.

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The flock so dearly bought, and loved so well.
Even in the very hour

Of guilty pride and power

Full on the circumcised Thy vengeance fell.

Then the fields were heaped with dead,

Then the streams with gore were red,

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And every bird of prey, and every beast,

From wood and cavern thronged to Thy great feast.

What terror seized the fiends obscene of Nile!
How wildly, in his place of doom beneath,
Arabia's lying prophet° gnashed his teeth,
And cursed his blighted hopes and wasted guile!
When, at the bidding of Thy sovereign might,
Flew on their destined path
Thy messengers of wrath,

Riding on storms and wrapped in deepest night.
The Phthian mountains saw;

And quaked with mystic awe:

The proud Sultana of the Straits bowed down
Her jewelled neck and her embattled crown.
The miscreants, as they raised their eyes
Glaring defiance on Thy skies,

Saw adverse winds and clouds display
The terrors of their black array;

Saw each portentous star

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Whose fiery aspect turned of yore to flight
The iron chariots of the Canaanite

Gird its bright harness for a deadlier war.

Beneath Thy withering look
Their limbs with palsy shook;

Scattered on earth the crescent banners lay;
Trembled with panic fear

Sabre and targe and spear,

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Through the proud armies of the rising day.
Faint was each heart, unnerved each hand;
And, if they strove to charge or stand.

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Their efforts were as vain

As his who, scared in feverish sleep
By evil dreams, essays to leap,
Then backward falls again.
With a crash of wild dismay,
Their ten thousand ranks gave way;
Fast they broke, and fast they fled;
Trampled, mangled, dying, dead,
Horse and horsemen mingled lay;
Till the mountains of the slain
Raised the valleys to the plain.
Be all the glory to Thy name divine!

The swords were ours; the arm, O Lord, was Thine.

Therefore to Thee, beneath whose footstool wait
The powers which erring man calls Chance and Fate,
To Thee who hast laid low

The pride of Europe's foe,

And taught Byzantium's° sullen lords to fear,

I pour my spirit out

In a triumphant shout,

And call all ages and all lands to hear.
Thou who evermore endurest,
Loftiest, mightiest, wisest, purest,
Thou whose will destroys or saves,
Dread of tyrants, hope of slaves,
The wreath of glory is from Thee,
And the red sword of victory.

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There where exulting Danube's flood
Runs stained with Islam's° noblest blood
From that tremendous field,

There where in mosque the tyrants met,
And from the crier's minaret

Unholy summons pealed,

Pure shrines and temples now shall be
Decked for a worship worthy Thee.
To Thee thy whole creation pays
With mystic sympathy its praise,
The air, the earth, the seas:

The day shines forth with livelier beam;
There is a smile upon the stream,

An anthem on the breeze.

Glory, they cry, to Him whose might
Hath turned the barbarous foe to flight,
Whose arm protects with

power divine

The city of his favored line.

The caves, the woods, the rocks, repeat the sound;
The everlasting hills roll the long echoes round.

But, if Thy rescued church may dare
Still to besiege Thy Throne with prayer,
Sheathe not, we implore Thee, Lord,
Sheathe not Thy victorious sword.
Still Panonia pines away,

Vassal of a double sway:

Still Thy servants groan in chains,

Still the race which hates Thee reigns:

Part the living from the dead:

Join the members to the head:

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Snatch Thine own sheep from yon fell monster's hold; 140 Let one kind shepherd rule one undivided fold.

He is the victor, only he

Who reaps the fruits of victory.