Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa',
Let him follow me!
By oppression's woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains,
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!—
Let us do or die!
From "The Lady of the Lake"
He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,
When our need was the sorest.
The font, reappearing
From the raindrops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,
To Duncan no morrow!
The hand of the reaper
Takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds rushing
Waft the leaves that are serest.
But our flower was in flushing,
When blighting was nearest.
Fleet foot on the correi,
Sage counsel in cumber,
Red hand in the foray,
How sound is thy slumber!
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and for ever!
Ar Crecy by Somme in Ponthieu
High up on a windy hill
A mill stands out like a tower:
King Edward stands on the mill.
The plain is seething below,
As Vesuvius seethes with flame,
But O! not with fire, but gore,
Earth incarnadined o'er,
Crimson with shame and with fame.
To the King run the messengers, crying,
"Thy Son is hard pressed to the dying!"
"Let alone: for to-day will be written in story
To the great world's end and for ever:
So let the boy have the glory."
With England are ranked against France; Out-facing the oriflamme red
The red dragons of Merlin advance;
As a harvest in autumn renewed
The lances bend over the fields;
Snow-thick our arrow-heads white
Level the foe as they light;
Knighthood to yeomanry yields:
Proud heart, the King watches, as higher
Goes the blaze of the battle, and nigher:
"To-day is a day will be written in story
To the great world's end, and for ever!
Let the boy alone have the glory."
By Norman arrow laid low,
When the shield-wall was breached by the shaft,
Thou art avenged by the bow!
Chivalry! name of romance!
Thou art henceforth but a name;
Weapon that none can withstand,
Yew in the Englishman's hand,
Flight-shaft unerring in aim!
As a lightning-struck forest the foemen
Shiver down to the stroke of the bowmen;
"O to-day is a day will be written in story
To the great world's end, and for ever!
So, let the boy have the glory."
Pride of Liguria's shore
Genoa wrestles in vain;
Vainly Bohemia's king
King-like is laid with the slain.
The Blood-lake is wiped out in blood,
The shame of the centuries o'er;
Where the pride of the Norman had sway,
The lions lord over the fray,
The legions of France are no more:
The Prince to his father kneels lowly:
"His is the battle-his wholly!
For to-day is a day will be written in story
To the great world's end, and for ever!
So, let him have the spurs and the glory."
Francis Turner Palgrave [1824-1897]
"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
Might startle into hideous life:
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' splendors run
Along the billows to the sun.
Opposed to these, a hovering band
Contended for their father-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 Patriot's Pass-Word 2283
The fire of conflict burned within,
The battle trembled to begin;
Yet, while the Austrians held their ground,
Point for assault was nowhere 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 haunts of slaves?
Would they not feel their children tread
With clanging chains, above their head?
It must not be: this day, this hour,
Annihilates the invader'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 number she could boast,
Yet every freeman was a host,
And felt as 'twere a secret known
That one should turn the scale alone,
While each unto 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;
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