Song of the Battle of Morgarten

The wine-month shone in its golden prime,
And the red grapes clustering hung,
But a deeper sound, through the Switzer’s clime,
Than the vintage music, rung--
A sound through vaulted cave,
A sound through echoing glen,
Like the hollow swell of a rushing wave;
--’Twas the tread of steel-girt men.

And a trumpet, pealing wild and far,
Midst the ancient rocks was blown,
Till the Alps replied to that voice of war
With a thousand of their own.
And through the forest-glooms
Flash’d helmets to the day;
And the winds were tossing knightly plumes,
Like the larch-boughs in their play.

In Hasli’s wilds there was gleaming steel
As the host of the Austrian pass’d;
And the Schreckhorn’s rocks, with a savage peal,
Made mirth of his clarion’s blast.
Up midst the Righi snows
The stormy march was heard,
With the charger’s tramp, whence fire-sparks rose,
And the leader’s gathering-word.

But a band, the noblest band of all,
Through the rude Morgarten strait,
With blazon’d streamers and lances tall,
Moved onwards in princely state.
They came with heavy chains
For the race despised so long--
But amidst his Alp-domains,
The herdsman’s arm is strong!

The sun was reddening the clouds of morn
When they enter’d the rock-defile,
And shrill as a joyous hunter’s horn
Their bugles rang the while.
But on the misty height
Where the mountain-people stood,
There was stillness as of night,
When storms at distance brood.

There was stillness as of deep, dead night,
And a pause--but not of fear,
While the Switzers gazed on the gathering might
Of the hostile shield and spear.
On wound those columns bright
Between the lake and wood,
But they look’d not to the misty height
Where the mountain-people stood.

The pass was fill’d with their serried power,
All helm’d and mail-array’d,
And their steps had sounds like a thunder-shower
In the rustling forest-shade.
There were prince and crested knight,
Hemm’d in by cliff and flood,
When a shout arose from the misty height
Where the mountain-people stood.

And the mighty rocks came bounding down
Their startled foes among,
With a joyous whirl from the summit thrown--
Oh! the herdsman’s arm is strong!--
They came like lauwine hurl’d
From Alp to Alp in play,
When the echoes shout through the snowy world,
And the pines are borne away.

The fir-woods crash’d on the mountain-side,
And the Switzers rush’d from high,
With a sudden charge, on the flower and pride
Of the Austrian chivalry:
Like hunters of the deer,
They storm’d the narrow dell;
And first in the shock, with Uri’s spear,
Was the arm of William Tell.

There was tumult in the crowded strait,
And a cry of wild dismay;
And many a warrior met his fate
From a peasant’s hand that day!
And the Empire’s banner then
From its place of waving free,
Went down before the shepherd-men,
The men of the Forest-Sea.

With their pikes and massy clubs they brake
The cuirass and the shield,
And the war-horse dash’d to the reddening lake
From the reapers of the field!
The field--but not of sheaves--
Proud crests and pennons lay,
Strewn o’er it thick as the birch-wood leaves
In the autumn tempest’s way.

Oh! the sun in heaven fierce havoc view’d
When the Austrian turn’d to fly,
And the brave, in the trampling multitude,
Had a fearful death to die!
And the leader of the war
At eve unhelm’d was seen,
With a hurrying step on the wilds afar,
And a pale and troubled mien.

But the sons of the land which the freeman tills
Went back from the battle-toil,
To their cabin homes midst the deep-green hills,
All burden’d with royal spoil.
There were songs and festal fires
On the soaring Alps that night,
When children sprang to greet their sires
From the wild Morgarten fight