On the exploit of Arnold Winkelried, at the battle of Sempach, in which the Swiss, fighting for their independence, totally defeated the Austrians, in the fourteenth

century.

"MAKE way for Liberty !"

he cried;

Made 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;

A wood, like that enchanted grove*,

In which with fiends Rinaldo strove,
Where every silent tree possessed

A spirit prisoned in its breast,

Which the first stroke of coming strife
Would startle into hideous life:

*See Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, Canto xviii.

So dense, so still, 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 native land:

Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke
From manly necks the ignoble yoke,
And forged 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.

And now the work of life and death
Hung on the passing of a breath;

The fire of conflict burned within,

The battle trembled to begin :

Yet while the Austrians held their ground,
Point for attack was no where found;
Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed,
The unbroken line of lances blazed;
That line 'twere suicide to meet,
And perish at their tyrants' feet;—
How could they rest within their graves,
And leave their homes, the homes of slaves?
Would they not feel their children tread
With clanking chains above their head?
It must not be this day, this hour,
Annihilates the oppressor's power;
All Switzerland is in the field,
She will not fly, she cannot yield—
She must not fall; her better fate
Here gives her an immortal date.

Few were the numbers she could boast;
But
every freeman was a host,

And felt as though himself were he,
On whose sole arm hung victory.

It did depend on one indeed ;
Behold him,-Arnold Winkelried!

There sounds not to the trump of fame

The echo of a nobler name.

Unmarked he stood amid the throng,

In rumination deep and long,

Till you might see with sudden grace,
The very thought come o'er his face;
And by the motion of his form,
Anticipate the bursting storm;
And by the uplifting of his brow,

Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.

But, 'twas no sooner thought than done; The field was in a moment won :"Make way for Liberty !" he cried, Then ran, with arms extended wide, As if his dearest friend to clasp ; Ten spears he swept within his grasp : "Make way for Liberty!" he cried, Their keen points met from side to side; He bowed amongst them like a tree, And thus made way for Liberty.

Swift to the breach his comrades fly;
"Make way for Liberty!" they cry,
And through the Austrian phalanx dart,
As rushed the spears through Arnold's heart;
While instantaneous as his fall,

Rout, ruin, panic, scattered all :
An earthquake could not overthrow
A city with a surer blow.

Thus Switzerland again was free ;
Thus Death made way for Liberty!

A SPRING DIRGE.

BY BERNARD BARTON, ESQ.

I.

THE Songster on the bough;

Spring's early greenness, and its opening flower,
Were joyous once :--but now
Faintly my spirit seems to feel their power.

II.

My heart, with answering glee,

Was wont to hail 'the merry month of May ;'

And, like the sapling tree,

To bud and blossom in its genial ray.

III.

Now it seems cold and drear,

While birds are singing round, and flowerets blow;

As-rugged, mossed and sere,

Stands the scathed trunk whose sap forgets to flow.