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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,
With strangers from the town,
Some secret plan discussing,

The men walked up and down.
Yet now and then seemed watching
A strange, uncertain gleam,
That looked like lances 'mid the trees
That stood below the stream.

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,
Ere one more day is flown,
Bregenz, our foeman's stronghold,
Bregenz shall be our own!"

The women shrank in terror,
(Yet pride, too, had her part),
But one poor Tyrol maiden

Felt death within her heart.

Before her stood fair Bregenz ;
Once more her towers arose ;
What were the friends beside her?
Only her country's foes!

The faces of her kinsfolk,

The days of childhood flown,
The echoes of her mountains,
Reclaimed her as their own!

Nothing she heard around her
(Though shouts rang forth again),
Gone were the green Swiss valleys,
The pasture, and the plain;
Before her eyes one vision,

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—
Faster, and still more fast;
The smooth grass flies behind her,
The chestnut wood is past;
She looks up; clouds are heavy :

Why is her steed so slow ?—
Scarcely the wind beside them
Can pass them as they go.

"Faster!" she cries, "O faster!"
Eleven the church-bells chime :
"O God," she cries, "help Bregenz,
And bring me there in time!"
But louder than bells' ringing,
Or lowing of the kine,
Grows nearer in the midnight
The rushing of the Rhine.

Shall not the roaring waters

Their headlong gallop check?
The steed draws back in terror,
She leans upon his neck
To watch the flowing darkness;
The bank is high and steep;
One pause-he staggers forward,
And plunges in the deep.

She strives to pierce the blackness,
And looser throws the rein;
Her steed must breast the waters

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,
By gateway, street, and tower,
The warder paces all night long
And calls each passing hour;
"Nine," "ten," "eleven," he cries aloud,
And then (O crown of Fame !)
When midnight pauses in the skies,
He calls the maiden's name!

NOW.

Rise! for the day is passing,
And you lie dreaming on;
The others have buckled their armor,
And forth to the fight are gone :
A place in the ranks awaits you,
Each man has some part to play;
The Past and the Future are nothing,
In the face of the stern To-day.

Rise from your dreams of the Future,— Of gaining some hard-fought field;

Of storming some airy fortress,

Or bidding some giant yield;
Your Future has deeds of glory,

Of honor (God grant it may !)
But your arm will never be stronger,
Or the need so great as To-day.

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