Shed o'er her holy sepulchres;
For, bivouack'd by thy murmuring stream,
Till morning comes, our brave boys dream.
Vale of the Marne! These graves we love them,
Bright bend the soft blue skies above them!
Green be the grass on every mound!
Let violets consecrate the ground!
Come hither, birds of every wing,
With songs here wake perpetual spring,
For, bivouack'd by yon murmuring stream,
Till morning comes, our brave boys dream.
Listen, fool miser! Devils smile,
To see you hoard-it doesn't pay.
Do you expect from such a pile
To profit at the Judgment Day?
Old Gabriel, then, in accents bold,
An answer like to this will give you— "Shell out a sample of your gold,
For surely you have brought it with you!"
When freakish wonders never cease,
How can my soul be songless?
A monkey's bit the King of Greece,
And a woman's gone to Congress!
These hooded heights, on every hand,
Tell me that I'm in Switzerland,
Among the Alps, whose mighty peaks
Know but the tongue that silence speaks,
And, 'mid whose awful stillness, broods
The sovereign bird of solitudes.
Where morning's blush and evening's glow Tint the white marbles of the snow; Where summits old, in cloud-land lost,
Wed an eternity of frost,
And flawless, sun-lit, crystal gems
Flash from a thousand diadems.
High o'er the calm lake's silvery bed,
The regal Jungfrau lifts her head,
Piercing the heavens, like a thorn,
Bristles the matchless Matterhorn;
And, rising into topmost rank,
Behold th' tiara of Mount Blanc,
Serenely lifted over all-
Queen of the icy carnival!
Here Beauty, the enchantress, dwells,
Weaving for all her wondrous spells,
Mixing a magic on these heights,
Unknown to the Arabian Nights.
Hark! On a thousand echoes borne,
The huntsman winds his bugle horn;
With feverish heat, from slope to slope,
Chases the antler'd antelope,
Or climbs the slippery stair of ice,
To pluck the far-fam'd Edelweiss,
Whose charm, with direst danger fraught,
Is often but too dearly bought;
That flower, whose petals always hide
Upon the mountain's steepest side,
Wooing the bold adventurer on,
Till the elusive goal is won;
Beaming upon him from above,
With fear-dispelling looks of love,
Like unstain'd Juliets of the skies,
Leaning o'er frozen balconies.
There, in a tranquil bower of shade,
By overhanging branches made,
And, wreath'd about with fir and fern,
Crouches the Lion of Lucerne.
Carv'd in the living rock, behold
That emblem, now a century old:
Wounded, a kingly lion lies.
Death's struggle mirror'd in his eyes,
But, ere th' last breath is seen to draw,
Caresses a lily with his paw.
The sculptor's object this: to tell
Far ages how sublimely fell
The brave Swiss Guard, enfolding fast
The Bourbon lilies to the last.
"Tis not alone for mountains grand
That hearts are drawn to Switzerland. For here unnumber'd virtues vie
To elevate humanity,
Uplifting trails which seem to show
How little to the Alps they owe,
Whose faith, serene in what it seeks,
Is pillow'd upon loftier peaks,
And, taught on heavenlier wings to soar,
Leaves eagles, in the mist, below.
Here thrift and industry unite
To make each prospect a delight:
Luxuriant gardens, quaintly kept,
Inviting doorsills, neatly swept,
Sheep pasturing in velvet plots,
Love worshiping in humble cots-
The round horizon everywhere
Speaks of contentment and of cheer.
All seem the common pace to keep,
Give day to toil and night to sleep
And labor finds, at evening's close,
Its recompense of sweet repose,
Nor craves the mad, voluptuous thrill
Whose nectar sparkles but to kill.
Grand are the Alps, upon whose snows,
Dame Nature wakes her loftiest rose,
And, gladdening heights no foot hath won,
There holds it nearest to the sun!
But not alone, in grandeur's dress,
Does one here look for loveliness.
Oft, in a homespun frock, one sees
The daintiest of divinities.
Truly, in all my mundane whirls,
I've nowhere gaz'd on rosier girls—
And speak I now by truth's command-
Than smil'd on me in Switzerland.
One vision, deep in memory set,
Whose beauty I can ne'er forget,
Pictures a maiden with a pail,
Home-tripping o'er a mountain trail,
With such a currency of health,
It sham'd the miser's meaner wealth.
The bluest of blue summer skies
Beam'd in the azure of her eyes,
The ruddiest of morning streaks
Tinted the crimson in her cheeks.
Such rustic sweetness, nature's own,
Was never in a hot-house grown,
But where, in sky-alembics blue,
The elfs of dawn distil the dew.
There grew she, by the mountain rills,
A wild-flower of her native hills.
Land of the proud, imperial bird!
Where the deep thunder's voice is heard,
Rolling in endless echoes back
From storm-cloud and from cataract,
And where, while blinding tempests blow,
Sleep the untroubl'd lakes below.
The peasant feels himself a king
Beneath the Alpine eagle's wing.
There Liberty, austere, alone,
Sits, sceptr'd on her loftiest throne,
And everywhere her eye doth meet
A wide world suppliant at her feet.
Deeming himself supremely blest,
The Switzer builds his little nest
Above the torrent's raging flood,
Where only sky-born eagles brood:
Oft but a cabin, wrought of logs,
Envelop'd in the mountain fogs,
Expos'd to every wind that blows,
Half-hidden in the Alpine snows;
But o'er his fortune murmuring not,
Esteems his own an envied lot,
With haughty looks would he disdain
A proffer'd palace on the plain,
Nor for the lordliest tower of Rome
Would he exchange his highland home.
Stalwart of frame, the mountaineer-
In God's nobility, a peer;
A robust flower of chivalry,
Nature's unpolish'd knight is he,
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