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| SWITZERLAND! my country! ’tis to thee, | |
| I rock my harp in agony:— | |
| My country! nurse of Liberty, | |
| Home of the gallant, great and free, | |
| My sullen harp I rock to thee. | 5 |
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| O, I have lost ye all | |
| Parents—and home—and friends: | |
| Ye sleep beneath a mountain pall; | |
| A mountain-plumage o’er ye bends. | |
| The cliff-yew in funereal gloom, | 10 |
| Is now the only mourning plume, | |
| That nods above a people’s tomb. | |
| Of the echoes that swim o’er thy bright blue lake, | |
| And deep in its caverns, their merry bells shake; | |
| And repeat thy young huntsman’s cry: | 15 |
| That clatter and laugh, when the goatherds take | |
| Their browsing flocks at the morning’s break, | |
| Far over the hills—not one is awake | |
| In the swell of thy peaceable sky. | |
| They sit on that wave with a motionless wing; | 20 |
| And their cymbals are mute and the desert birds sing | |
| Their unanswer’d notes to the wave and the sky— | |
| One startling, and sudden—unchangeable cry— | |
| As they stoop their broad wing, and go sluggishly by: | |
| For deep in that blue-bosom’d water is laid | 25 |
| As innocent, true, and as lovely a maid | |
| As ever in cheerfulness carol’d her song, | |
| In the blithe mountain air, as she bounded along: | |
| The heavens are all blue, and the billow’s bright verge | |
| Is frothily laved by a whispering surge, | 30 |
| That heaves incessant, a tranquil dirge, | |
| To lull the pale forms that sleep below: | |
| Forms—that rock as the waters flow. | |
| That bright lake is still as a liquid sky, | |
| And when o’er its bosom the swift clouds fly, | 35 |
| They pass like thoughts o’er a clear blue eye! | |
| The fringe of thin foam that their sepulchre binds, | |
| Is as light as a cloud that is borne by the winds; | |
| While over its bosom the dim vapors hover, | |
| And flutterless skims the snowy-wing’d plover: | 40 |
| Swiftly passing away—like a haunted wing; | |
| With a drooping plume—that may not fling | |
| One sound of life—or a rustling note— | |
| O’er that sleepless tomb—where my loved ones float. | |
| Oh cool and fresh is that bright blue lake, | 45 |
| While over its stillness no sounds awake: | |
| No sights—but those of the hill-top fountain | |
| That swims on the height of a cloud-wrapp’d mountain— | |
| The basin of the rainbow-stream, | |
| The sunset gush—the morning gleam— | 50 |
| The picture of the poet’s dream. | |
| Land of proud hearts! where freedom broods | |
| Amid her home of echoing woods, | |
| The mother of the mountain floods— | |
| Dark, Goldau is thy vale; | 55 |
| The spirits of Rigi shall wail | |
| On their cloud-bosom’d deep, as they sail | |
| In mist where thy children are lying— | |
| As their thunders once paused in their headlong descent, | |
| And delay’d their discharge—while thy desert was rent | 60 |
| With the cries of thy sons who were dying. | |
| No chariots of fire on the clouds career’d; | |
| No warrior-arm, with its falchion rear’d:— | |
| No death-angel’s trump o’er the ocean was blown; | |
| No mantle of wrath o’er the heaven was thrown; | 65 |
| No armies of light—with their banners of flame— | |
| Or neighing steeds—through the sunset came, | |
| Or leaping from space appear’d! | |
| No earthquakes reel’d—no Thunderer storm’d; | |
| No fetterless dead o’er the bright sky swarm’d; | 70 |
| No voices in heaven were heard! | |
| But the hour when the sun in his pride went down | |
| While his parting hung rich o’er the world: | |
| While abroad o’er the sky his flush mantle was blown, | |
| And his red-rushing streamers unfurl’d;— | 75 |
| An everlasting hill was torn | |
| From its eternal base—and borne— | |
| In gold and crimson vapors drest | |
| To where—a people are at rest! | |
| Slowly it came in its mountain wrath, | 80 |
| And the forests vanish’d before its path: | |
| And the rude cliffs bow’d—and the waters fled— | |
| And the living were buried, while over their head | |
| They heard the full march of their foe as he sped— | |
| And the valley of life—was the tomb of the dead! | 85 |
| The clouds were all bright: no lightnings flew: | |
| And over that valley no death-blast blew: | |
| No storm pass’d by on his cloudy wing: | |
| No twang was heard from the sky-archer’s string— | |
| But the dark, dim hill in its strength came down, | 90 |
| While the shedding of day on its summit was thrown, | |
| A glory all light, like a wind-wreathed crown— | |
| While the tame bird flew to the vulture’s nest, | |
| And the vulture forbore in that hour to molest.— | |
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| The mountain sepulchre of all I loved! | 95 |
| The village sank—and the monarch trees | |
| Lean’d back from the encountering breeze— | |
| While this tremendous pageant moved! | |
| The mountain forsook his perpetual throne— | |
| Came down from his rock—and his path is shown | 100 |
| In barrenness and ruin—where | |
| The secret of his power lies bare— | |
| His rocks in nakedness arise: | |
| His desolation mocks the skies. | |
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