FEELINGS OF THE TYROLese.
THE Land we from our fathers had in trust, And to our children will transmit, or die : This is our maxim, this our piety;
And God and Nature say that it is just.
That which we would perform in arms-we must! We read the dictate in the infant's eye;
In the wife's smile; and in the placid sky; And, at our feet, amid the silent dust
Of them that were before us.-Sing aloud
the precious music of the heart!
Give, herds and flocks, your voices to the wind!
While we go forth, a self-devoted crowd,
With weapons grasped in fearless hands, to assert Our virtue, and to vindicate mankind.
ALAS! what boots the long laborious quest Of moral prudence, sought through good and ill; Or pains abstruse-to elevate the will,
And lead us on to that transcendent rest Where every passion shall the sway attest Of Reason, seated on her sovereign hill; What is it but a vain and curious skill, If sapient Germany must lie deprest,
Beneath the brutal sword?—Her haughty Schools Shall blush; and may not we with sorrow say, A few strong instinets and a few plain rules, Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought More for mankind at this unhappy day
Than all the pride of intellect and thought?
AND is it among rude untutored Dales, There, and there only, that the heart is true? And, rising to repel or to subdue,
Is it by rocks and woods that man prevails? Ah, no! though Nature's dread protection fails, There is a bulwark in the soul. This knew
Iberian Burghers when the sword they drew In Zaragoza, naked to the gales
Of fiercely-breathing war.
By Palafox, and many a brave compeer, Like him of noble birth and noble mind; By ladies, meek-eyed women without fear ; And wanderers of the street, to whom is dealt The bread which without industry they find.
O'ER the wide earth, on mountain and on plain, Dwells in the affections and the soul of man A Godhead, like the universal PAN;
But more exalted, with a brighter train : And shall his bounty be dispensed in vain, Showered equally on city and on field, And neither hope nor steadfast promise yield In these usurping times of fear and pain? Such doom awaits us. Nay, forbid it Heaven! We know the arduous strife, the eternal laws To which the triumph of all good is given, High sacrifice, and labour without pause, Even to the death :-else wherefore should the eye Of man converse with immortality?
ON THE FINAL SUBMISSION OF THE TYROLESE.
It was a moral end for which they fought;
Else how, when mighty Thrones were put to shame, Could they, poor Shepherds, have preserved an aim, A resolution, or enlivening thought?
Nor hath that moral good been vainly sought; For in their magnanimity and fame
Powers have they left, an impulse, and a claim Which neither can be overturned nor bought. Sleep, Warriors, sleep! among your hills repose! We know that ye, beneath the stern control Of awful prudence, keep the unvanquished soul: And when, impatient of her guilt and woes, Europe breaks forth; then, Shepherds! shall ye rise For perfect triumph o'er your Enemies.
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