Of a stag that o'er the hills goes bounding in its glee;
Of a thousand flashing rills,-of all things glad and free.
I dream of some proud bird, a bright-eyed mountain king:
In my visions I have heard the rushing of his wing.
I follow some wild river, on whose breast no sail may be;
Dark woods around it shiver,-I dream of all things free:
Of a happy forest child, with the fawns and flowers at play,
Of an Indian midst the wild, with the stars to guide his way;
Of a chief his warriors leading; of an archer's greenwood tree:
My heart in chains is bleeding, and I dream of all things free!
WILLIAM TELL.-BRYANT.
CHAINS may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee,
Tell, of the iron heart! they could not tame!
For thou wert of the mountains; they proclaim
The everlasting creed of liberty.
That creed is written on the untrampled snow,
Thunder'd by torrents which no power can hold,
Save that of God, when he sends förth his cold,
And breathed by winds that through the free heaven blow
Thou, while thy prison walls were dark around,
Didst meditate the lesson Nature taught,
And to thy brief captivity was brought
A vision of thy Switzerland unbound.
The bitter cup they mingled, strengthen'd thee
For the great work to set thy country free.
TELL ON SWITZERLAND.-Knowles.'
ONCE Switzerland was free! With what a pride
I used to walk these hills,-look up to Heaven,
And bless God that it was so! It was free
From end to end, from cliff to lake 'twas free!
JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES, an English poet, is the most successful of modern tragic dramatists. His first play, Virginius," appeared in 1820, and had an extraordinary run of success. All his plays have been collected and republished, of which, perhaps, none is more popu lar than William Tell," from which the above was extracted.
Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks,
And plow our valleys, without asking leave;
Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow
In very presence of the regal sun!
How happy was I in it then! I loved
Its very storms. Ay, often have I sat
In my boat at night, when midway o'er the lake
The stars went out, and down the mountain gorge
The wind came roaring,-I have sat and eyed
The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled
To see him shake his lightnings o'er my head,
And think I had no master save his own.-
You know the jutting cliff, round which a track
Up hither winds, whose base is but the brow
To such another one, with scanty room
For two abreast to pass? O'ertaken there
By the mountain blast, I've laid me flat along
And while gust follow'd gust more furiously,
As if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink,
And I have thought of other lands, whose storms
Are summer flaws to those of mine, and just
Have wish'd me there;-the thought that mine was free
Has check'd that wish, and I have raised my head,
And cried in thraldom to that furious wind,
BLOW ON! THIS IS THE LAND OF LIBERTY!
How SLEEP THE BRAVE.-COLLINS.'
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow'd mold,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
'COLLINS, See Biographical Sketch, p. 492.
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there.
THE GREEKS AT THERMOPYLE.-BYRON
THEY fell devoted, but undying;
The very gale their names seem'd sighing;
The waters murmur'd of their name;
The woods were peopled with their fame;
The silent pillar, lone and gray,
Claim'd kindred with their sacred clay:
Their spirits wrapp'd the dusky mountain,
Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain:
The meanest rill, the mightiest river,
Roll'd mingling with their fame forever.
Despite of every yoke she bears,
The land is glory's still and theirs.
'Tis still a watchword to the earth:
When man would do a deed of worth,
He points to Greece, and turns to tread,
So sanction'd, on the tyrant's head;
He looks to her, and rushes on
Where life is lost, or freedom won.
[E who hath bent him o'er the dead,
HEre the first day of death is fled,
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress,
Before Decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,
And mark'd the mild, angelic air,
The rapture of repose, that's there,
The fix'd yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid check-
And but for that sad, shrouded eye,
That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now
And but for that chill, changeless brow,
Where cold obstruction's apathy
Appalls the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart
The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon-
Yes, but for these, and these alone,
Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour,-
He still might doubt the tyrant's power;
So fair, so calm, so softly seal'd,
The first-last look by death reveal'd!
2. Such is the aspect of this shōre;
'Tis Greece-but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start-for soul is wanting there.
Hers is the loveliness in death,
That parts not quite with parting breath;
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb--
Expression's last receding ray
A gilded halo hovering round decay,
The farewell beam of feeling past away!
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth,
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherish'd earth.
3. Clime of the unforgotten brave!
Whose land from plain to mountain-cave
Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave!
Shrine of the mighty! can it be
That this is all remains of thee?
Approach, thou craven, crouching slave!
Say, is not this Thermopyla?'
These waters blue that round you lave,
'Thermopyla (ther mop' e le), a famous pass of Greece, about five miles long, and originally from 50 to 60 yards in width. It is hemmed in on one side by precipitous rocks of from 400 to 600 feet in height, and on the other side by the sea and an impassable morass. Here LEONIDAS and his 300 Spartans died in defending Greece against the invasion of XERXES, B. c. 489.
O servile offspring of the free-
Pronounce what sea, what shōre is this
The gulf, the rock, of Salamis !'
These scenes, their story not unknown,
Arise, and make again your own:
Snatch from the ashes of your sires
The embers of their former fires;
And he who in the strife expires
Will add to theirs a name of fear,
That Tyranny shall quake to hear,
And leave his sons a hope, a fame,
They too will rather die than shame;
For Freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.
4. Bear witness, Grecce, thy living page!
Attest it, many a deathless age!
While kings, in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid,
Thy heroes, though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tomb,
A mightier monument command-
The mountains of their native land!
There points thy Muse, to stranger's eye,
The graves of those that can not die!
'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,
Each step from splendor to disgrace:
Enough, no foreign foe could quell
Thy soul, till from itself it fell.
Yes! self-abasement paved the way
To villain-bonds and despot sway.
'Sål' a mis, an island of Greece, in the Gulf of Ægina, ten miles W. of Athens. Its shape is very irregular; the surface is mountainous, and wooded in some parts. In the channel between it and the main land, the Greeks, under THEMISTOCLES, gained a memorable naval victory over the Persians, B. c. 480. SOLON and EURIPIDES were natives of Salamis. See Biographical Sketch, p. 292.
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