« Hollo! thou felon, follow here: To bridal bed we ride; And thou shalt prance a fetter dance Before me and my bride.» And hurry, hurry! clash, clash, clash! The wasted form descends; And, fleet as wind through hazel-bush, The wild career attends. Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode, How fled what moonshine faintly show'd! How fled the earth beneath their feet, «Dost fear? dost fear? The moon shines clear, And well the dead can ride; Does faithful Helen fear for them?» « O leave in peace the dead!»> << Barb! barb! methinks I hear the cock; The sand will soon be run: Barb! barb! I smell the morning air; Tramp! tramp! along the land they rode, << Hurrah! hurrah! well ride the dead; Reluctant on its rusty hinge With many a shriek and cry whiz round O'er many a tomb and tomb-stone pale He check'd the wond'rous course. The falling gauntlet quits the rein, Down drops the casque of steel, The cuirass leaves his shrinking side, The spur his gory heel. The eyes desert the naked skull, The furious barb snorts fire and foam, And, with a fearful bound, Dissolves at once in empty air, And leaves her on the ground. Half seen by fits, by fits half heard, Wheel round the maid in dismal dance, << Even when the heart's with anguish cleft, THE BATTLE OF SEMPACH. THESE verses are a literal translation of an ancient Sa ballad upon the battle of Sempach, fought 9th Ja 1386, being the victory by which the Swiss cantons es tablished their independence. The author is Albert Tchudi, denominated the Souter, from his profession of a shoemaker. He was a citizen of Lucerne, esteemed highly among his countrymen, both for his powers as a Meister-singer or minstrel, and his courage as a soldier; so that he might share the praise conferred by Collins on Eschylus, that -Not alone he nursed the poet's flame, But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot steel. The circumstance of their being written by a port returning from the well-fought field he describes, and in which his country's fortune was secured, may confr on Tchudi's verses an interest which they are not e titled to claim from their poetical merit. But baad poetry, the more literally it is translated, the more it loses its simplicity, without acquiring either grace o strength; and therefore some of the faults of the vers must be imputed to the translator's feeling it a duty to keep as closely as possible to his original. The various puns, rude attempts at pleasantry, and disproportion a episodes, must be set down to Tchudi's account, or to the taste of his age. The military antiquary will derive some amusement from the minute particulars which the martial poet has recorded. The mode in which the Austrian men-atarms received the charge of the Swiss was by forming a phalanx, which they defended with their long lace The gallant Winkelried, who sacrificed his own life by rushing among the spears, clasping in his arms as many as he could grasp, and thus opening a gap in these in battalions, is celebrated in Swiss history. When fa mingled together, the unwieldy length of their wer pons, and cumbrous weight of their defensive armon rendered the Austrian men-at-arins a very uneq 14 match for the light-armed mountaineers. The victori obtained by the Swiss over the German chivalry, atherto deemed as formidable on foot as on borsebars led to important changes in the art of war. The por describes the Austrian knights and squires as cuti a the peaks from their boots ere they could act up foot, in allusion to an inconvenient piece of fopper), often mentioned in the middle ages. Leopold III Archduke of Austria, called «The handsome man-atarms,» was slain in the battle of Sempach, with the flower of his chivalry. TWAS when among our linden trees Then look'd we down to Willisow, The Austrian nobles made their vow, With clarion loud, and banner proud, Fierce Oxenstern replied; «O Hare-castle, thou heart of hare!>> Shalt see then how the game will fare,» The taunting knight replied. There was lacing then of helmets bright, The peaks they hew'd from their boot-points And thus, they to each other said, The gallant Swiss confederates there, Then heart and pulse throbb'd more and more And down the good confederates bore The Austrian Lion 'gan to growl, And ball, and shaft, and cross-bow bolt Lance, pike, and halberd, mingled there, The Austrian men-at-arms stood fast, «I have a virtuous wife at home, A wife and infant son; I leave them to my country's care,— This field shall soon be won. << These nobles lay their spears right thick, And keep full firm array, Yet shall my charge their order break, He rush'd against the Austrian band, In desperate career, And with his body, breast, and hand, Bore down each hostile spear. Four lances splinter'd on his crest, This patriot's self-devoted deed, First tamed the Lion's mood, And the four forest cantons freed From thraldom by his blood. This seems to allude to the preposterous fashion, during the middle ages, of wearing boots with the points or peaks turned upwards, and so long that, in some cases, they were fastened to the knees of the wearer with small chains. When they alighted to fight upon foot, it would seem that the Austrian gentlemen found it ne All the Swiss clergy who were able to bear arms fought in this cessary to cut off these peaks, that they might move with the neces pauriotic war. in the original, Haasenstein, or Hare-stone. sary activity. * A pun on the Archduke's name, Leopold. Right where his charge had made a lane, His valiant comrades burst, With sword, and axe, and partizan, And hack, and stab, and thrust. The daunted Lion 'gan to whine. And granted ground amain, The mountain Bull, he bent his brows, And gored his sides again. Then lost was banner, spear, and shield, The cloister vaults at Konigsfield It was the Archduke Leopold, But he came against the Switzer churls, The heifer said unto the bull, « And shall I not complain? There came a foreign nobleman To milk me on the plain. « One thrust of thine outrageous horn An Austrian noble left the stour, He and his squire a fisher call'd (His name was flans Von Rot), « For love, or meed, or charity, Receive us in thy boat.» Their anxious call the fisher heard, And while against the tide and wind The fisher's back was to them turn'd, He 'whelm'd the boat, and as they strove, « Two gilded fishes in the lake This morning have I caught, Their silver scales may much avail, Their carrion flesh is naught." A pun on the Unus, or wild bull, which gives name to the can ton of Uri. It was a messenger of woe «At Sempach, on the battle-field, His bloody corpse lies there.» « Ah, gracious God!» the lady cried, « What tidings of despair!» Now, would you know the minstrel wight, A merry man was he, I wot, THE NOBLE MORINGER: AN ANCIENT BALLAD, TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN. THE original of these verses occurs in a collection of German popular songs, entitled Sammlung Deutschen Volkslieder, Berlin, 1807, published by Messrs. Easel ve and Von der Hagen, both, and more especially the last distinguished for their acquaintance with the ancient popular poetry and legendary history of Germany. In the German editor's notice of the ballad, a stated to have been extracted from a manuscr Chronicle of Nicolaus Thomann, chaplain to St Leonas in Weisenhorn, which bears the date 1533; and the song is stated by the author to have been generally @ { in the neighbourhood at that early period. The as quoted by the German editor, seems faithfu have believed the event he narrates. Ile quotes stones and obituaries to prove the existence of the sonages of the ballad, and discovers that there a tually ded on the 11th May, 1349, a Lady Von Neufra Countess of Marstetten, who was by birth of the bewe of Moringer. This lady he supposes to have been ringer's daughter mentioned in the ballad. He ques the same authority for the death of Berckhold Vie Neuffen in the same year. The editors, on the whol seem to embrace the opinion of Professor Smith, a Ulm, who, from the language of the ballad, ascribes date to the 15th century. The legend itself turns on an incident not peculi Germany, and which perhaps was not unlikely to La pen in more instances than one, when crusaders abo long in the Holy Land, and their disconsolate dames ceived no tidings of their fate. A story very similar in circumstances, but without the miraculous machin of Saint Thomas, is told of one of the ancient lords! Haigh-hall, in Lancashire, the patrimonial inheritance the late Countess of Balcarras; and the particulars ane represented on stained glass upon a window in thi ancient manor-house. «T is I have vow'd a pilgrimage Unto a distant shrine, And I must seek Saint Thomas-land, And leave the land that 's mine; Here shalt thou dwell the while in state, Then out and spoke that lady bright, Now, tell me true, thou noble knight, IV. Out spoke the noble Moringer, « Of that have thou no care, There's many a valiant gentleman Of me holds living fair; The trustiest shall rule my land, V. As christian-man, I needs must keep The vow which I have plight; When I am far in foreign land, Remember thy true knight; And cease, my dearest dame, to grieve, It was the noble Moringer From bed he made him bowne, VIII. The chamberlain was blunt and true, And sturdily said he, << Abide, my lord, and rule your own, The noble baron turn'd him round, To whom he spoke right anxiously, |