IS THERE SOME SPIRIT SIGHING.-ETC.

Last of his noble race

To a lonely bed we bore him;

'Twas a green, still, solemn place,

Where the mountain-heath waves o'er him.
Woods alone

Seem to moan,

Wild streams to deplore him.

Yet, from festive hall and lay

Our sad thoughts oft are flying,
To those dark hills far away,
Where in death we found him lying;
On his breast

A banner press'd,

And the night-wind o'er him sighing.

IS THERE SOME SPIRIT SIGHING.

Is there some spirit sighing
With sorrow in the air,
Can weary hearts be dying,
Vain love repining there?

If not, then how can that wild wail,
O sad Æolian lyre!

Be drawn forth by the wandering gale,
From thy deep thrilling wire?

No, no!-thou dost not borrow
That sadness from the wind,
Nor are those tones of sorrow
In thee, O harp! enshrined;
But in our own hearts deeply set
Lies the true quivering lyre,

Whence love, and memory, and regret,
Wake answers from thy wire.

THE NAME OF ENGLAND.

THE trumpet of the battle

Hath a high and thrilling tone;

And the first deep gun of an ocean fight
Dread music all its own.

But a mightier power, my England!
Is in that name of thine,

To strike the fire from every heart
Along the banner'd line.

Proudly it woke the spirits

Of yore, the brave and true,

When the bow was bent on Cressy's field,
And the yeoman's arrow flew.

429

And proudly hath it floated

Through the battles of the sea,

When the red-cross flag o'er smoke wreaths play'd,
Like the lightning in its glee.

On rock, on wave, on bastion,
Its echoes have been known,

By a thousand streams the hearts lie low,
They have answer'd to its tone.

A thousand ancient mountains
Its pealing note hath stirr'd ;
-Sound on, and on, for evermore,
O thou victorious word!

OLD NORWAY.

A MOUNTAIN WAR-song.

"To a Norwegian the words Gamle Norge (Old Norway) have a spell in them immediate and powerful; they cannot be resisted. Gamle Norge is heard, in an instant, repeated by every voice; the glasses are filled, raised, and drained; not a drop is left; and then bursts forth the simultaneous chorus 'For Norge!' the national song of Norway. Here, (at Christiansand,) and in a hundred other instances in Norway, I have seen the character of a company entirely changed by the chance introduction of the expression Gamlé Norge. The gravest discussion is instantly interrupted; and one might suppose for the moment, that the party was a party of patriots assembled to commemorate some national anniversary of freedom."-DERWENT CONWAY's Personal Narrative of a Journey through Norway and Sweden.

The following words were written to the national air, as con tained in the work above cited.]

ARISE! old Norway sends the word

Of battle on the blast;

Her voice the forest pines hath stirr'd,
As if a storm went past;

Her thousand hills the call have heard,
And forth their fire-flags cast.

Arm, arm, free hunters! for the chase,
The kingly chase of foes;

'Tis not the bear or wild wolf's race,
Whose trampling shakes the snows;
Arm, arm! 'tis on a nobler trace

The northern spearman goes.

Our hills have dark and strong defiles,
With many an icy bed

Heap there the rocks for funeral piles,
Above the invader's head!

Or let the seas, that guard our isles,
Give burial to his dead!

THE LEAGUE OF THE ALPS.

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COME TO ME, GENTLE SLEEP.

COME to me, gentle sleep!

I pine, I pine for thee;

Come with thy spells, the soft, the deep,
And set my spirit free!

Each lonely, burning thought,

In twilight languor steep

Come to the full heart, long o'erwrought,
O gentle, gentle sleep!

Come with thine urn of dew,

Sleep, gentle sleep! yet bring

No voice, love's yearning to renew,

No vision on thy wing!

Come, as to folding flowers,

To birds in forests deep;

-Long, dark, and dreamless be thine hours,

O gentle, gentle sleep!

THE LEAGUE OF THE ALPS; OR, THE MEETING ON THE FIELD OF GRUTLI.*

ADVERTISEMENT.

(IT was in the year 1308 that the Swiss rose against the tyranny of the bailiffs appointed over them by Albert of Austria. The field called the Grutli, at the foot of the Seelisberg, and near the boundaries of Uri and Unterwalden, was fixed upon by three spirited yeomen, Walter Furst, (the father-in-law of William Tell,) Werner Stauffacher, and Erni (or Arnold) Melchthal, as their place of meeting to deliberate on the accomplishment of their projects.

"Hither came Furst and Melchthal, along secret paths over the heights, and Stauffacher in his boat across the Lake of the Four Cantons. On the night preceding the 11th of November 1307, they met here, each with ten associates, men of approved worth; and while at this solemn hour they were wrapt in the contemplation that on their success depended the fate of their whole posterity, Werner, Walter, and Arnold, held up their hands to Heaven, and in the name of the Almighty, who has created man to an inalienable degree of freedom, swore jointly and strenuously to defend that freedom. The thirty associates heard the oath with awe; and with uplifted hands attested the same God, and all his saints, that they were firmly bent on offering up their lives for the defence of their injured liberty. They then calmly agreed on their future proceedings, and for the present each returned to his hamlet."— PLANTA'S History of the Helvetic Confederacy.

On the first day of the year 1308, they succeeded in throwing off the Austrian yoke, and "it is well attested," says the same author, "that not one drop of blood was shed on this memorable occasion, nor had one proprietor to lament the loss of a claim, a privilege, or an inch of land. The Swiss met on the succeeding Sabbath, and once more confirmed by oath their ancient, and (as they fondly named it) their perpetual league."]

*In point of chronology, this poem should have followed "The Vespers of Palermo" and "Songs of the Cid." Having been inad

I.

"Twas night upon the Alps. The Senn's wild horn,'
Like a wind's voice, had pour'd its last long tone,
Whose pealing echoes, through the larch-woods borne,
To the low cabins of the glens made known

That welcome steps were nigh. The flocks had gone,
By cliff and pine-bridge, to their place of rest;
The chamois slumber'd, for the chase was done ;
His cavern-bed of moss the hunter press'd,
And the rock-eagle couch'd high on his cloudy nest.

II.

Did the land sleep?-the woodman's axe had ceased
Its ringing notes upon the beech and plane;
The grapes were gather'd in; the vintage feast
Was closed upon the hills, the reaper's strain.
Hush'd by the streams; the year was in its wane
The night in its mid-watch; it was a time

E'en mark'd and hallow'd unto slumber's reign,
But thoughts were stirring, restless and sublime,
And o'er his white Alps moved the spirit of the clime.

III.

For there, where snows, in crowning glory spread
High and unmark'd by mortal footstep lay;

And there, where torrents, 'mid the ice-caves fed,
Burst in their joy of light and sound away;

And there, where freedom, as in scornful play,

Had hung man's dwellings 'midst the realms of air,

O'er cliffs the very birth-place of the day—

Oh! who would dream that tyranny could dare

To lay her withering hand on God's bright works e'en there 1

IV.

Yet thus it was-amidst the fleet streams gushing

To bring down rainbows o'er their sparry cell,

And the glad heights, through mist and tempest rushing

Up where the sun's red fire-glance earliest fell,

And the fresh pastures where the herd's sweet bell

Recall'd such life as Eastern patriarch's led:

There peasant men their free thoughts might not tell
Save in the hour of shadows and of dread,

And hollow sounds that wake to Guilt's dull stealthy tread.

V.

But in a land of happy shepherd homes,

On its green hills in quiet joy reclining,

With their bright hearth-fires 'midst the twilight glooms,
From bowery lattice through the fir woods shining-
A land of legends, and wild songs entwining

vertently omitted in its proper place, it is here inserted between the Songs for Music " and the "Scenes and Hymns of Life,” in order more strikingly to exhibit the changes in style and habits of thought apparent between the earlier and later compositions of Mrs Hemans

Their memory with all memories loved and blestIn such a land there dwells a power, combining The strength of many a calm but fearless breast; And woe to him who breaks the Sabbath of its rest!

VI.

A sound went up-the wave's dark sleep was broken-
On Uri's lake was heard a midnight oar-

Of man's brief course a troubled moment's token
Th' eternal waters to their barriers bore;
And then their gloom a flashing image wore
Of torch-fires streaming out o'er crag and wood,
And the wild-falcon's wing was heard to soar
In startled haste-and by that moonlight flood,
A. band of patriot men on Grutli's verdure stood.

VII.

They stood in arms: the wolf-spear and the bow
Had waged their war on things of mountain race
Might not their swift stroke reach a mail-clad foe?
-Strong hands in harvest, daring feet in chase,
True hearts in fight, were gather'd on that place
Of secret council.-Not for fame or spoil

So met those men in Heaven's majestic face
To guard free hearths they rose, the sons of toil,
The hunter of the rocks, the tiller of the soil.

VIII.

O'er their low pastoral valleys might the tide
Of years have flow'd, and still, from sire to son,
Their names and records on the green earth died,
As cottage-lamps, expiring one by one

In the dim glades, when midnight hath begun
To hush all sound.-But silent on its height,
The snow-mass, full of death, while ages run
Their course, may slumber, bathed in rosy light,
fill some rash voice or step disturb its brooding might.

IX.

So were they roused-th' invading step had pass'd
Their cabin thresholds, and the lowly door,

Which well had stood against the Fohnwind's blast,
Could bar Oppression from their homes no more,
Why, what had she to do where all things wore
Wild grandeur's impress ?-In the storm's free way,
How dared she lift her pageant crest before

Th' enduring and magnificent array

Of sovereign Alps, that wing'd their eagles with the day!

X.

This might not long be borne-the tameless hills

Have voices from the cave and cataract swelling,
Fraught with His name, whose awful presence fills
Their deep lone places, and for ever telling

That He hath made man free! and they whose dwelling
VOL. II.—37