StoryTitle("caps", "Arnold Von Winkleried") ?>
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"Make way for liberty!\" he cried,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Make way for liberty, and died.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In arms the Austrian phalanx stood,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A living wall, a human wood,—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A wall, where every conscious stone", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Seemed to its kindred thousands grown.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A rampart all assaults to bear,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till time to dust their frames should wear;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "So still, so dense the Austrians stood,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A living wall, a human wood.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Impregnable their front appears,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "All horrent with projected spears.", "") ?>
PagePoem(297, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Whose polished points before them shine,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "From flank to flank, one brilliant line,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Bright as the breakers' splendours run", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Along the billows to the sun.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Opposed to these a hovering band", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Contended for their fatherland;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "From manly necks the ignoble yoke,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And beat their fetters into swords,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "On equal terms to fight their lords;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And what insurgent rage had gained,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In many a mortal fray maintained;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Marshalled, once more, at Freedom's call,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "They came to conquer or to fall,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Where he who conquered, he who fell,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Was deemed a dead or living Tell,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Such virtue had that patriot breathed,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "So to the soil his soul bequeathed,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That wheresoe'er his arrows flew,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Heroes in his own likeness grew,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And warriors sprang from every sod,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Which his awakening footstep trod.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And now the work of life and death", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Hung on the passing of a breath;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The fire of conflict burned within,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The battle trembled to begin;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yet, while the Austrians held their ground,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Point for attack was nowhere found;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The unbroken line of lances blazed;", "") ?>
PagePoem(298, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That line 'twere suicide to meet,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And perish at their tyrant's feet;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "How could they rest within their graves,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And leave their homes, the homes of slaves!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Would not they feel their children tread,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With clanging chains, above their head?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It must not be; this day, this hour,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Annihilates the invader's power;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "All Switzerland is in the field;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "She will not fly,—she cannot yield,—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "She must not fall; her better fate", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Here gives her an immortal date.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Few were the numbers she could boast,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But every freeman was a host,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And felt as 'twere a secret known", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That one should turn the scale alone,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "While each unto himself was he", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "On whose sole arm hung victory.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It did depend on one indeed;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Behold him,—Arnold Winkelried;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There sounds not to the trump of fame", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The echo of a nobler name.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Unmarked he stood amid the throng,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In rumination deep and long,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till you might see, with sudden grace,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The very thought come o'er his face;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And, by the motion of his form,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Anticipate the bursting storm,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And, by the uplifting of his brow,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.", "") ?>
PagePoem(299, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But 'twas no sooner thought than done!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The field was in a moment won;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"Make way for liberty!\" he cried,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then ran, with arms extended wide,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As if his dearest friend to clasp;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ten spears he swept within his grasp.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"Make way for liberty!\" he cried.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Their keen points crossed from side to side;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He bowed amidst them like a tree,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And thus made way for liberty.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Swift to the breach his comrades fly,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"Make way for liberty!\" they cry,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And through the Austrian phalanx dart,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As rushed the spears through Arnold's heart.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "While instantaneous as his fall,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Rout, ruin, panic, seized them all;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "An earthquake could not overthrow", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A city with a surer blow.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thus Switzerland again was free;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thus Death made way for Liberty!", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("100", SmallCapsText("James Montgomery.")) ?>
PoemEnd() ?>