Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79.
The Cavern of the Three Tells
By Felicia Hemans (1793–1835)O,
Seek not the bright stars there,
Though the whispering pines that o’er it wave
With freshness fill the air;
For there the Patriot Three,
In the garb of old arrayed,
By their native forest-sea
On a rocky couch are laid.
Beneath the midnight sky,
And leagued their hearts on Grütli shore,
In the name of liberty!
Now silently they sleep
Amidst the hills they freed;
But their rest is only deep,
Till their country’s hour of need.
Nor the Lammer-geyer’s cry,
Nor the rush of a sudden torrent’s fall,
Nor the Lanwine thundering by!
And the Alpine herdsman’s lay,
To a Switzer’s heart so dear!
On the wild wind floats away,
No more for them to hear.
Till the Schreckhorn’s peaks reply,
When the Jungfrau’s cliffs send back the tone
Through their eagle’s lonely sky;
When spear-heads light the lakes,
When trumpets loose the snows,
When the rushing war-steed shakes
The glacier’s mute repose;
In the burning hamlet’s light;
Then from the cavern of the dead
Shall the sleepers wake in might!
With a leap, like Tell’s proud leap,
When away the helm he flung,
And boldly up the steep
From the flashing billow sprung!
In the ancient garb they wore
When they linked the hands that made us free,
On the Grütli’s moonlight shore:
And their voices shall be heard,
And be answered with a shout,
Till the echoing Alps are stirred,
And the signal-fires blaze out.
As those of that proud day,
When Winkelried, on Sempach’s plain,
Through the serried spears made way;
And when the rocks came down
On the dark Morgarten dell,
And the crowned casques, overthrown,
Before our fathers fell!
In a land that wears the chain,
And the vines on freedom’s holy ground
Untrampled must remain!
And the yellow harvest wave
For no stranger’s hand to reap,
While within their silent cave
The men of Grütli sleep!