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Home  »  The Complete Poetical Works by William Wordsworth  »  FEELINGS OF THE TYROLESE

FEELINGS OF THE TYROLESE


THE Land we from our fathers had in trust, And to our children will transmit, or die: This is our maxim, this our piety; And God and Nature say that it is just. That which we ‘would’ perform in arms–we must! We read the dictate in the infant’s eye; In the wife’s smile; and in the placid sky; And, at our feet, amid the silent dust Of them that were before us.–Sing aloud Old songs, the precious music of the heart! 10 Give, herds and flocks, your voices to the wind! While we go forth, a self-devoted crowd, With weapons grasped in fearless hands, to assert Our virtue, and to vindicate mankind. 1809.