ARNOLD VON WINKLERIED.
"Make way for liberty!" he cried,
Make way for liberty, and died.
In arms the Austrian phalanx stood,
A living wall, a human wood,--
A wall, where every conscious stone
Seemed to its kindred thousands grown.
A rampart all assaults to bear,
Till time to dust their frames should wear;
So still, so dense the Austrians stood,
A living wall, a human wood.
Impregnable their front appears,
All horrent with projected spears.
Whose polished points before them shine,
From flank to flank, one brilliant line,
Bright as the breakers' splendours run
Along the billows to the sun.
Opposed to these a hovering band
Contended for their fatherland;
Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke
From manly necks the ignoble yoke,
And beat their fetters into swords,
On equal terms to fight their lords;
And what insurgent rage had gained,
In many a mortal fray maintained;
Marshalled, once more, at Freedom's call,
They came to conquer or to fall,
Where he who conquered, he who fell,
Was deemed a dead or living Tell,
Such virtue had that patriot breathed,
So to the soil his soul bequeathed,
That wheresoe'er his arrows flew,
Heroes in his own likeness grew,
And warriors sprang from every sod,
Which his awakening footstep trod.
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