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Impregnable their front appears,
All-horrent with projected spears,
Whose polish'd points before them shine,
From flank to flank, one brilliant line,
Bright as the breakers' splendours run
Along the billows to the sun.

Opposed to these, a hovering band
Contended for their father-land;

Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke
From manly necks th' ignoble yoke,

And beat their fetters into swords,
On equal terms to fight their lords,
And what insurgent rage had gain'd,
In many a mortal fray maintain'd.
Marshall'd once more, at freedom's call
They came to conquer or to fall,
Where he who conquer'd, he who fell,
Was deem'd a dead or living Tell;
Such virtue had that patriot breathed,
So to the soil his soul bequeathed,
That wheresoe'er his arrows flew,
Heroes in his own likeness grew,
And warriors sprang from every sod
Which his awakening footstep trod.

And now the work of life and death
Hung on the passing of a breath;
The fire of conflict burn'd within,
The battle trembled to begin ;

Yet while the Austrians held their ground,
Point for assault was nowhere found;
Where'er th' impatient Switzers gazed,
Th' unbroken line of lances blazed;
That line 'twere suicide to meet,
And perish at their tyrants' feet:

How could they rest within their graves,
To leave their homes the haunts of slaves?
Would they not feel their children tread,
With clanking chains, above their head?

It must not be; this day, this hour
Annihilates th' invader's power;
All Switzerland is in the field,
She will not fly, she cannot yield,
She must not fall; her better fate
Here gives her an immortal date.
Few were the numbers she could boast,
Yet every freeman was a host,
And felt as 'twere a secret known,
That one should turn the scale alone,
While each unto himself was he,
On whose sole arm hung victory.
It did depend on one indeed;
Behold him,-Arnold Winkelried;
There sounds not to the trump of fame
The echo of a nobler name.

Unmark'd he stood amidst the throng,
In rumination deep and long,

Till you might see, with sudden grace,
The very thought come o'er his face,
And by the motion of his form

Anticipate the bursting storm,
And by th' uplifting of his brow

Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.
But 'twas no sooner thought than done,

The field was in a moment won;

"Make way for liberty!" he cried,

Then ran, with arms extended wide,

As if his dearest friend to clasp;

Ten spears he swept within his grasp; "Make way for liberty!" he cried,

Their keen points cross'd from side to side; He bow'd amidst them, like a tree,

And thus made way for liberty.

Swift to the breach his comrades fly, “Make way for liberty!" they cry, And through the Austrian phalanx dart, As rush'd the spears through Arnold's heart,

While, instantaneous as his fall,
Rout, ruin, panic seized them all;
An earthquake could not overthrow
A city with a surer blow.

Thus Switzerland again was free;
Thus death made way for liberty.

Redcar, 1827.

THE VOYAGE OF THE BLIND.

"It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

Built in th' eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark."

MILTON'S Lycidas.

THE subject of the following poem was suggested by certain well-authenticated facts, published at Paris, in a medical journal, some years ago; of which a few particulars may be given here.

"The ship Le Rodeur, Captain B., of two hundred tons burden, left Havre on the 24th of January, 1819, for the coast of Africa, and reached her destination on the 14th of March following, anchoring at Bonny, on the river Calabar. The crew, consisting of twenty-two men, enjoyed good health during the outward voyage, and during their stay at Bonny, where they continued till the 6th of April. They had observed no trace of ophthalmia among the natives; and it was not until fifteen days after they had set sail on the return voyage, and the vessel was near the equator, that they perceived the first symptoms of this frightful malady. It was then remarked, that the negroes, who, to the number of one hundred and sixty, were crowded together in the hold, and between the decks, had contracted a considerable redness of the eyes, which spread with singular rapidity. No great attention was at first paid to these symptoms, which were thought to be caused only by the want of air in the hold, and by the scarcity of water, which had already begun to be felt. At this time they were limited to eight ounces of water a day for each person, which quantity was afterwards reduced to the half of a wine-glass. By the advice of M. Maugnan, the surgeon of the ship, the negroes, who had hitherto remained shut up in the hold, were brought upon deck in succession, in order that they might breathe a purer air. But it became necessary to abandon this expedient, salutary as it was, because many of the negroes, affected with nostalgia, (a passionate longing to return to their native land,) threw themselves into the sea, locked in each other's arms. "The disease which had spread itself so rapidly and frightfully among the Africans, soon began to infect all on board. The danger also was greatly increased by a malignant dysentery which prevailed at the time. The first of the crew who caught it was a sailor who slept under the deck near the grated hatch which communicated with the hold. The next day a landsman was seized with ophthalmia; and in three days more, the captain and the whole ship's company, except one sailor, who remained at the helm, were blinded by the disorder.

"All means of cure which the surgeon employed, while he was able to act, proved ineffectual. The sufferings of the crew, which were otherwise intense,

were aggravated by apprehension of revolt among the negroes, and the dread of not being able to reach the West Indies, if the only sailor who had hitherto escaped the contagion, and on whom their whole hope rested, should lose his sight like the rest. This calamity had actually befallen the Leon, a Spanish vessel which the Rodeur met on her passage, and the whole of whose crew, having become blind, were under the necessity of altogether abandoning the direction of their ship. These unhappy creatures, as they passed, earnestly entreated the charitable interference of the seamen of the Rodeur; but these, under their own affliction, could neither quit their vessel to go on board the Leon, nor receive the crew of the latter into the Rodeur, where, on account of the cargo of negroes, there was scarcely room for themselves. The vessels, therefore, soon parted company, and the Leon was never seen or heard of again, so far as could be traced at the publication of this narrative. In all probability, then, it was lost. On the fate of this vessel the poem is founded.

"The Rodeur reached Guadaloupe on the 21st of June, 1819; her crew being in a most deplorable condition. Of the negroes, thirty-seven had become perfectly blind, twelve had lost each an eye, and fourteen remained otherwise blemished by the disease. Of the crew, twelve, including the surgeon, had entirely lost their sight; five escaped with an eye each, and four were partially injured."

PART I.

O'ER Africa the morning broke,
And many a negro-land reveal'd,
From Europe's eye and Europe's yoke,
In nature's inmost heart conceal'd:
Here roll'd the Nile his glittering train,
From Ethiopia to the main;

And Niger there uncoil'd his length,
That hides his fountain and his strength,
Among the realms of noon;

Casting away their robes of night,
Forth stood in nakedness of light,
The mountains of the moon.

.

Hush'd were the howlings of the wild,
The leopard in his den lay prone;
Man, while creation round him smiled,
Was sad or savage, man alone;
-Down in the dungeons of Algiers,
The Christian captive woke in tears;
Caffraria's lean, marauding race
Prowl'd forth on pillage or the chase;

-In Libyan solitude,

Th' Arabian horseman scour'd along;
-The caravan's obstreperous throng,
Their dusty march pursued.

But wo grew frantic in the west;
A wily rover of the tide

Had mark'd the hour of Afric's rest,

To snatch her children from her side:
At early dawn, to prospering gales,
The eager seamen stretch their sails;
The anchor rises from its sleep
Beneath the rocking of the deep;
Impatient from the shore,

A vessel steals ;-she steals away,
Mute as the lion with his prey,
-A human prey she bore.

Curst was her trade and contraband,

Therefore that keel, by guilty stealth,
Fled with the darkness from the strand,
Laden with living bales of wealth:
Fair to the eye her streamers play'd
With undulating light and shade;
White from her prow the gurgling foam
Flew backward tow'rds the negro's home,
Like his unheeded sighs;

Sooner that melting foam shall reach
His inland home, than yonder beach
Again salute his eyes.

Tongue hath not language to unfold
The secrets of the space between
That vessel's flanks,-whose dungeon-hold
Hides what the sun hath never seen;
Three hundred writhing prisoners there
Breathe one mephitic blast of air
From lip to lip;-like flame supprest,
It bursts from every tortured breast,

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