The men seemed stern and altered, With looks cast on the ground; With anxious faces, one by one, The women gathered round; All talk of flax, or spinning, Or work, was put away; very children seemed afraid To go alone to play. The One day, out in the meadow, The men walked up and down. At eve they all assembled, Then care and doubt were fled; With jovial laugh they feasted; The board was nobly spread. The elder of the village Rose up, his glass in hand, And cried: "We drink the downfall Of an accursed land! "The night is growing darker, The women shrank in terror, Felt death within her heart. Before her stood fair Bregenz ; The faces of her kinsfolk, The days of childhood flown, Nothing she heard around her And in her heart one cry, That said: "Go forth, save Bregenz, And then, if need be, die !" With trembling haste and breathless, With noiseless step, she sped; Horses and weary cattle Were standing in the shed; She loosed the strong white charger, That fed from out her hand; She mounted, and she turned his head Towards her native land. Out-out into the darkness— Why is her steed so slow ?— "Faster!" she cries, "O faster!" Shall not the roaring waters Their headlong gallop check? She strives to pierce the blackness, That dash above his mane. How gallantly, how nobly He struggles through the foam, And see in the far distance Shine out the lights of home! Up the steep bank he bears her, And now, they rush again Towards the heights of Bregenz, That tower above the plain. They reach the gate of Bregenz, Just as the midnight rings, And out come serf and soldier To meet the news she brings. Bregenz is saved! Ere daylight Her battlements are manned; Defiance greets the army That marches on the land. And if to deeds heroic Should endless fame be paid, Bregenz does well to honor The noble Tyrol maid. Three hundred years are vanished And yet upon the hill An old stone gateway rises To do her honor still. And there, when Bregenz women Sit spinning in the shade, They see in quaint old carving The charger and the maid. And when, to guard old Bregenz, NOW. Rise! for the day is passing, Rise from your dreams of the Future,— Of gaining some hard-fought field; Of storming some airy fortress, Or bidding some giant yield; Of honor (God grant it may !) |