In arms the Austrian phalanx stood,
A living wall, a human wood;
All-horrent with projected spears.
Opposed to these, a hovering band
Impregnable their front appears,
Contended for their fatherland;

Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke
From manly necks the ignoble yoke;

Marshalled once more at freedom's call,
They came to conquer or to fall.

2

And now the work of life and death
Hung on the passing of a breath;
The fire of conflict burned within;
The battle trembled to begin:

Yet, while the Austrians held their ground,
Point for assault was nowhere found;
Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed,
The unbroken line of lances blazed;
That line 'twere suicide to meet,
And perish at their tyrants' feet.

How could they rest within their graves,
To leave their homes the haunts of slaves?
Would they not feel their children tread,
With clanking chains, above their head?

3

It must not be: this day, this hour,
Annihilates the invader's power!
All Switzerland is in the field—
She will not fly, she cannot yield,
She must not fall; her better fate
Here gives her an immortal date.

Few were the numbers she could boast,
Yet every freeman was a host,

And felt as 'twere a secret known

That one should turn the scale alone,

While each unto himself was he

On whose sole arm hung victory.

4

It did depend on one, indeed;
Behold him-Arnold Winkelried!
There sounds not to the trump of Fame
The echo of a nobler name.

Unmarked, he stood amid the throng,
In rumination deep and long,

Till you might see, with sudden grace,
The very thought come o'er his face,
And, by the motion of his form,
Anticipate the bursting storm,

And, by the uplifting of his brow,

Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.

5

But 'twas no sooner thought than done—
The field was in a moment won!

"Make way for liberty!" he cried,
Then ran, with arms extended wide,
As if his dearest friend to clasp;

Ten spears he swept within his grasp;

"Make way for liberty!" he cried;

Their keen points crossed from side to side;

He bowed amidst them like a tree,

And thus made way for liberty.

Swift to the breach his comrades fly"Make way for liberty!" they cry,

And through the Austrian phalanx dart,

As rushed the spears through Arnold's heart.
While, instantaneous as his fall,

Rout, ruin, panic, seized them all;
An earthquake could not overthrow
A city with a surer blow.

6

Thus Switzerland again was free;
Thus death made way for liberty.

HELPS TO STUDY

Historical: July 9, 1386, a battle between the Swiss and Austrians took place at Sempach, a small town of Switzerland. The Austrian troops were well trained and well armed. As the cavalry were unable to manage their horses in the mountain pass, they dismounted and stood shoulder to shoulder, forming a solid mass and using their spears as weapons. The Swiss mountaineers were not able to break through the Austrian lines until Arnold von Winkelried rushed forward, grasped as many spears as he could reach with his outstretched arms, pressed them into his body and, falling, bore them down with him to the ground. His companions rushed over his body into the opening thus made in the Austrian lines and won a victory which secured the independence of Switzerland.

Notes and Questions

Who cried, "Make way for liberty''?

In what way did the Austrians

resemble a wall?

What does the poet mean by com

paring them to a wood? Who were the "hovering band?'' For what were they fighting? Why does the poet describe them as hovering instead of attacking?

What line tells you that the Swiss

were not accustomed to war? What lines tell you that the Austrians were well disciplined soldiers?

What gave the Swiss courage to

face so strong a foe?

Read the lines in the third stanza

which tell you that each of the Swiss felt that the victory depended on him alone.

What effect did this thought have upon their efforts?

Adelaide A. Procter (1825-1864) was an English poet. She was born in London, where she also lived and died. She was the daughter of Bryan Waller Procter, who wrote under the name of Barry Cornwall. Her poems are full of sympathy and sweetness.

1

GIRT round with rugged mountains

The fair Lake Constance lies;

In her blue heart reflected

Shine back the starry skies;
And, watching each white cloudlet

Float silently and slow,

You think a piece of Heaven

Lies on our earth below!

2

Midnight is there: and Silence,

Enthroned in Heaven, looks down

Upon her own calm mirror,

Upon a sleeping town:

For Bregenz, that quaint city

Upon the Tyrol shore,

Has stood above Lake Constance

A thousand years and more.

3

Her battlements and towers,
From off their rocky steep,
Have cast their trembling shadow
For ages on the deep:
Mountain, and lake, and valley,

A sacred legend know,

Of how the town was saved, one night, Three hundred years ago.

4

Far from her home and kindred,
A Tyrol maid had fled,

To serve in the Swiss valleys,
And toil for daily bread;
And every year that fleeted
So silently and fast,

Seemed to bear farther from her
The memory of the Past.

5

She served kind, gentle masters,
Nor asked for rest or change;

Her friends seemed no more new ones,

Their speech seemed no more strange; And when she led her cattle

To pasture every day,
She ceased to look and wonder
On which side Bregenz lay.

6

She spoke no more of Bregenz,
With longing and with tears;
Her Tyrol home seemed faded
In a deep mist of years;