Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79. | | | | Austria: Leopoldsberg | | Sobieski | | Magnus Sabiston |
| | * * * * * SOON as the first faint twilight of the coming morn gave sign, | |
| Sobieski took his charger, and he rode along the line; | |
| He saw his army all prepared and ready for the fray: | |
| Their ranks were put in motion at the dawning of the day; | |
| And troop by troop, and file by file, the winding columns pressed | 5 |
| Up the high Leopoldsberg, and halted on its crest. | |
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| The sun rose, and a flood of light o’er heaven and earth he threw; | |
| But a soft sea of silvery mist hid all below from view; | |
| The vapors yielded to his beams, and, floating far and wide, | |
| They vanished like a vision as they reached the mountain’s side; | 10 |
| And the glorious panorama they for a while concealed, | |
| In all its morning freshness and beauty was revealed. | |
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| Far to the south the Styrian Alps ’gainst the blue heaven arose, | |
| Their sides veiled in faint purple haze, their summits white with snows; | |
| The Carpathian mountains, eastward, half hid in mist were seen: | 15 |
| And the spires of distant Presburg, and the Leytha’s slopes of green; | |
| And the majestic Danube, like a flood of liquid gold, | |
| Reflecting the sun’s splendor, through the great valley rolled, | |
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| Which, in the distance, stretched away, by mountain walls confined,— | |
| The beaten path of nations, the highway of mankind. | 20 |
| Beneath them lay Vienna, still enwreathed in mist and smoke: | |
| Its walls breached by the Moslems’ guns, whose thunders ceaseless broke; | |
| And their tents in countless thousands stretched mile after mile around, | |
| And, like a second city, spread o’er all the neighboring ground. * * * * * | | | | |
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