Before her stood fair Bregenz;
Once more her towers arose;
What were the friends beside her?
Only her country's foes!
The faces of her kinsfolk,
The days of childhood flown,
The echoes of her mountains,
Reclaimed her as their own.
Nothing she heard around her
(Though shouts rang forth again),
Gone were the green Swiss valleys,
The pasture, and the plain;
Before her eyes one vision,
And in her heart one cry,
That said, "Go forth, save Bregenz,
And then, if need be, die!"
With trembling haste, and breathless,
With noiseless step, she sped;
Horses and weary cattle
Were standing in the shed;
She loosed the strong, white charger,
That fed from out her hand,
She mounted, and she turned his head
Toward her native land.
Out--out into the darkness--
Faster, and still more fast;
The smooth grass flies behind her,
The chestnut wood is past;
She looks up; clouds are heavy;
Why is her steed so slow?
Scarcely the wind beside them
Can pass them as they go.
"Faster!" she cries, "O faster!"
Eleven the church-bells chime:
"O God," she cries, "help Bregenz,
And bring me there in time!"
But louder than bells' ringing,
Or lowing of the kine,
Grows nearer in the midnight
The rushing of the Rhine.
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