| AND hail the Chapel! hail the Platform wild! | |
| Where Tell directed the avenging Dart, | |
| With well-strung arm, that first preserved his Child, | |
| Then aim’d the arrow at the Tyrant’s heart. | |
| |
| Splendor’s fondly fostered child! | 5 |
| And did you hail the platform wild | |
| Where once the Austrian fell | |
| Beneath the shaft of Tell? | |
| O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! | |
| Whence learnt you that heroic measure? | 10 |
| |
| Light as a dream your days their circlets ran; | |
| From all that teaches Brotherhood to Man, | |
| Far, far removed! from want, from hope, from fear. | |
| Enchanting music lulled your infant ear, | |
| Obeisance, praises, soothed your infant heart: | 15 |
| Emblazonments and old ancestral crests, | |
| With many a bright obtrusive form of art, | |
| Detained your eye from nature’s stately vests | |
| That veiling strove to deck your charms divine; | |
| Rich viands and the pleasurable wine, | 20 |
| Where yours unearned by toil; nor could you see | |
| The unenjoying toiler’s misery. | |
| And yet, free Nature’s uncorrupted child, | |
| You hailed the Chapel and the Platform wild, | |
| Where once the Austrian fell | 25 |
| Beneath the shaft of Tell! | |
| O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! | |
| Where learnt you that heroic measure? | |
| |
| There crowd your finely fibred frame, | |
| All living faculties of bliss; | 30 |
| And Genius to your cradle came, | |
| His forehead wreathed with lambent flame, | |
| And bending low, with godlike kiss | |
| Breathed in a more celestial life; | |
| But boasts not many a fair compeer | 35 |
| A heart as sensitive to joy and fear? | |
| |
| And some, perchance, might wage an equal strife, | |
| Some few, to nobler being wrought, | |
| Co-rivals in the nobler gift of thought. | |
| Yet these delight to celebrate | 40 |
| Laureled War and plumy State; | |
| Or in verse and music dress | |
| Tales of rustic happiness— | |
| Pernicious Tales! insidious Strains! | |
| That steel the rich man’s breast, | 45 |
| And mock the lot unblest, | |
| The sordid vices and the abject pains, | |
| Which evermore must be | |
| The doom of Ignorance and Penury! | |
| But you, free Nature’s uncorrupted child, | 50 |
| You hailed the Chapel and the Platform wild, | |
| Where once the Austrian fell | |
| Beneath the shaft of Tell! | |
| O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! | |
| Where learnt you that heroic measure? | 55 |
| |
| You were a Mother! That most holy name, | |
| Which Heaven and Nature bless, | |
| I may not vilely prostitute to those | |
| Whose Infants owe them less | |
| Than the poor Caterpillar owes | 60 |
| Its gaudy Parent Fly. | |
| You were a Mother! at your bosom fed | |
| The Babes that loved you. You, with laughing eye, | |
| Each twilight-thought, each nascent feeling read, | |
| Which you yourself created. Oh, delight! | 65 |
| A second time to be a Mother, | |
| Without the Mother’s bitter groans: | |
| Another thought, and yet another, | |
| By touch, or taste, by looks or tones, | |
| O’er the growing Sense to roll, | 70 |
| The Mother of your infant’s Soul! | |
| The Angel of the Earth, who while he guides | |
| His chariot-planet round the goal of day, | |
| All trembling gazes on the Eye of God, | |
| A moment turned his face away; | 75 |
| And as he viewed you, from his aspect sweet | |
| New influences in your being rose, | |
| Blest Intuitions and Communions fleet | |
| With living Nature, in her joys and woes! | |
| Thenceforth your soul rejoiced to see | 80 |
| The shrine of social Liberty! | |
| O beautiful! O Nature’s child! | |
| ’Twas thence you hailed the Platform wild, | |
| Where once the Austrian fell | |
| Beneath the shaft of Tell! | 85 |
| O Lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure! | |
| Thence learnt you that heroic measure. | |
| |
