Often lost their quivering beam, Still the lights move slow before, Till they rest their ghastly gleam Right against an iron door. Thundering voices from within, Mix'd with peals of laughter, rose; As they fell, a solemn strain Lent its wild and wondrous close! Midst the din, he seem'd to hear 'Twas the lay that Alice loved.— Hark! for now a solemn knell Echoes from the ruins spoke. As the lengthen'd clangors die, Slowly opes the iron door! Straight a banquet met his eye, But a funeral's form it wore ! Coffins for the seats extend; All with black the board was spread; Girt by parent, brother, friend, Long since number'd with the dead! Alice, in her grave-clothes bound, Ghastly smiling, points a seat; All arose, with thundering sound; All the expected stranger greet. High their meagre arms they wave, Wild their notes of welcome swell:"Welcome, traitor, to the grave! Perjured, bid the light farewell!" The Battle of Sempach. [1818.] THESE verses are a literal translation of an ancient Swiss ballad upon the battle of Sempach, fought 9th July, 1386, being the victory by which the Swiss cantons established their independence; the author, Albert Tchudi, denominated the Souter, from his profession of a shoemaker. He was a citizen of Lucerne, esteemed highly among his countrymen, both for his powers as a MeisterSinger, or minstrel, and his courage as a soldier; so that he might share the praise conferred by Collins on Eschylus, that- "Not alone he nursed the poet's flame, But reach'd from Virtue's hand the patriot steel." The circumstance of their being written by a poet returning from the well-fought field he describes, and in which his country's fortune was secured, may confer on Tchudi's verses an interest which they are not entitled to claim from their poetical merit. But ballad poetry, the more literally it is translated, the more it loses its simplicity, without acquiring either grace or strength; and, therefore, some of the faults of the verses must be imputed to the translator's feeling it a duty to keep as closely as possible to his original. The various puns, rude attempts at pleasantry, and disproportioned episodes, must be set down to Tchudi's account, or to the taste of his age. The military antiquary will derive some amusement from the minute particulars which the martial poet has recorded. The mode in which the Austrian men-at-arms received the charge of the Swiss, was by forming a phalanx, which they defended with their long lances. The gallant Winkelreid, who sacrificed his own life by rushing among the spears, clasping in his arms as many as he could grasp, and thus opening a gap in those iron battalions, is celebrated in Swiss history. When fairly mingled together, the unwieldy length of their weapons, and cumbrous weight of their defensive armor, rendered the Austrian men-at-arms a very unequal match for the light-armed mountaineers. The victories obtained by the Swiss over the German chivalry, hitherto deemed as formidable on foot as on horseback, led to important changes in the art of war. The poet describes the Austrian knights and squires as cutting the peaks from their boots ere they could act upon foot, in allusion to an inconvenient piece of foppery, often mentioned in the middle ages. Leopold III, Archduke of Austria, called "The handsome manat-arms," was slain in the Battle of Sempach, with the flower of his chivalry. THE BATTLE OF SEMPACH.' 'Twas when among our linden-trees The bees had housed in swarms (And gray-hair'd peasants say that these Betoken foreign arms), Then look'd we down to Willisow, 1 This translation first appeared in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for February, 1818.-ED. III. Then out and spoke that Lady bright, sore troub led in her cheer, "Now tell me true, thou noble knight, what order takest thou here; lordly sway, And be thy lady's guardian true when thou art far away?" stated to have been extracted from a manuscript Chronicle of Nicolaus Thomann, chaplain to Saint Leonard in Weisenhorn, which bears the date 1533; and the song is stated by the author to have been generally sung in the neighborhood at that early period. Thomann, as quoted by the German Ed- And who shall lead thy vassal band, and hold thy itor, seems faithfully to have believed the event he narrates. He quotes tombstones and obituaries to prove the existence of the personages of the ballad, and discovers that there actually died, on the 11th May, 1349, a Lady Von Neuffen, Countess of Marstetten, who was, by birth, of the house Out spoke the noble Moringer, "Of that have thou of Moringer. This lady he supposes to have been Moringer's daughter, mentioned in the ballad. He quotes the same authority for the death of Berckhold Von Neuffen, in the same year. The editors, on the whole, seem to embrace the opinion of Professor Smith of Ulm, who, from the language of the ballad, ascribes its date to the 15th century. no care, IV. There's many a valiant gentleman of me holds V. "As Christian-man, I needs must keep the vow which I have plight, When I am far in foreign land, remember thy true knight; And cease, my dearest dame, to grieve, for vain The legend itself turns on an incident not peculiar to Germany, and which, perhaps, was not unlikely to happen in more instances than one, when crusaders abode long in the Holy Land, and their disconsolate dames received no tidings of their fate. A story, very similar in circumstances, but without the miraculous machinery of Saint Thomas, is told of one of the ancient Lords of Haigh-hall But grant thy Moringer his leave, since God hath in Lancashire, the patrimonial inheritance of the late Countess of Balcarras; and the particulars are represented on stained glass upon a window in that ancient manor-house.1 THE NOBLE MORINGER. I. O, WILL you hear a knightly tale of old Bohemian day, It was the noble Moringer in wedlock bed he lay; He halsed and kiss'd his dearest dame, that was as sweet as May, And said, "Now, lady of my heart, attend the words I say. II. "Tis I have vow'd a pilgrimage unto a distant shrine, And I must seek Saint Thomas-land, and leave the land that's mine; Here shalt thou dwell the while in state, so thou wilt pledge thy fay, That thou for my return wilt wait seven twelvemonths and a day." 1 See Introduction to "The Betrothed," Waverley Novels, vol. xxxvii. were sorrow now, heard his vow." VI. IX. The noble Baron turn'd him round, his heart was full of care, XV. "Thy tower another banner knows, thy steeds another rein, His gallant Esquire stood him nigh, he was Mars- And stoop them to another's will thy gallant vastetten's heir, sal train; To whom he spoke right anxiously, "Thou trusty And she, the Lady of thy love, so faithful once "To watch and ward my castle strong, and to It is the noble Moringer starts up and tears his protect my land, And to the hunting or the host to lead my vassal band; And pledge thee for my lady's faith till seven long years are gone, beard, "Oh would that I had ne'er been born! what tidings have I heard! To lose my lordship and my lands the less would be my care, And guard her as Our Lady dear was guarded by But, God! that e'er a squire untrue should wed Saint John ?" my Lady fair. And readily he answer made with too presump- A traitor robs me of my land even while I pay my Rely upon my plighted faith, which shall be truly It was the good Saint Thomas, then, who heard tried, To guard your lands, and ward your towers, and with your vassals ride; And for your lovely Lady's faith, so virtuous and so dear, his pilgrim's prayer, And sent a sleep so deep and dead that it o'erpower'd his care; He waked in fair Bohemian land outstretch'd beside a rill, I'll gage my head it knows no change, be absent High on the right a castle stood, low on the left a thirty year." The noble Moringer took cheer when thus he The Moringer he started up as one from spell unheard him speak, And doubt forsook his troubled brow, and sorrow left his cheek; bound, And dizzy with surprise and joy gazed wildly all around; A long adieu he bids to all-hoists topsails, and "I know my fathers' ancient towers, the mill, the away, stream I know, And wanders in Saint Thomas-land seven twelve- Now blessed be my patron Saint who cheer'd his months and a day. pilgrim's woe!" XIV. XX. It was the noble Moringer within an orchard slept, When on the Baron's slumbering sense a boding So alter'd was his goodly form that none their vision crept; [charity, And whisper'd in his ear a voice, ""Tis time, Sir The Baron to the miller said, "Good friend, for Knight, to wake, Thy lady and thy heritage another master take. Tell a poor palmer in your land what tidings may there be ?" He leant upon his pilgrim staff, and to the mill he drew, master knew; |