Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79. | | | | Switzerland: Lucerne | | Monument at Lucerne | | John Kenyon (1784–1856) |
| | To the Swiss Guard Massacred at the Assault on the Tuileries, A.D. 1792 |
|
WHEN maddened France shook her King’s palace floor, | |
| Nobly, heroic Swiss, ye met your doom. | |
| Unflinching martyr to the oath he swore, | |
| Each steadfast soldier faced a certain tomb. | |
| |
| Not for your own, but others’ claims ye died: | 5 |
| The steep, hard path of fealty called to tread, | |
| Threatened or soothed, ye never turned aside, | |
| But held right on, where fatal duty led! | |
| |
| Reverent we stand beside the sculptured rock, | |
| Your cenotaph,—Helvetia’s grateful stone; | 10 |
| And mark in wonderment, the breathing block, | |
| Thorwaldsen’s glorious trophy,—in your own. | |
| |
| Yon dying lion is your monument! | |
| Type of majestic suffering, the brave brute, | |
| Human almost, in mighty languishment | 15 |
| Lies wounded, not subdued; and, proudly mute, | |
| |
| Seems as for some great cause resigned to die: | |
| And, hardly less than hero’s parting breath, | |
| Speaks to the spirit, through the admiring eye, | |
| Of courage, faith, and honorable death. | 20 | | |
|
|
|
