The banner in the student’s hand
      Waved triumph from the fight before;
    What terror seized the conq’ring band?—­
      It fell, to rise no more! 
    And with it died the lofty flame,
    That from his lips in lightning came
      And burned upon their own;
    Dread Pappenheim led back the foe,
    The mountain peasants yielded slow,
    And plain above and lake below
      Were red when evening shone!

    Now many a year has passed away
      Since battle’s blast rolled o’er the plain,
    The Alps are bright in morning’s ray—­
      The Traunstein smiles again. 
    But underneath the flowery sod,
    By happy peasant children trod,
      A hero’s ashes lay. 
    O’er him no grateful nation wept,
    Fame, of his deed no record kept,
    And dull Forgetfulness hath swept
      His very name away!

    In many a grave, by poets sung,
      There falls to dust a lofty brow,
    But he alone, the brave and young,
      Sleeps there forgotten now. 
    The Alps upon that field look down,
    Which won his bright and brief renown,
       Beside the lake’s green shore;
    Still wears the land a tyrant’s chain—­
    Still bondmen tread the battle-plain,
    Culled by his glorious soul in vain
      To win their rights of yore.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE AUSTRIAN ALPS.

It was nearly dark when we came to the end of the plain and looked on the city at our feet and the lovely lake that lost itself in the mountains before us.  We were early on board the steamboat next morning, with a cloudless sky above us and a snow-crested Alp beckoning on from the end of the lake.  The water was of the most beautiful green hue, the morning light colored the peaks around with purple, and a misty veil rolled up the rocks of the Traunstein.  We stood on the prow and enjoyed to the fullest extent the enchanting scenery.  The white houses of Gmunden sank down to the water’s edge like a flock of ducks; halfway we passed castle Ort, on a rock in the lake, whose summit is covered with trees.

As we neared the other extremity, the mountains became steeper and loftier; there was no path along their wild sides, nor even a fisher’s hut nestled at their feet, and the snow filled the ravines more than half-way from the summit.  An hour and a quarter brought us to Ebensee, at the head of the lake, where we landed and plodded on towards Ischl, following the Traun up a narrow valley, whose mountain walls shut out more than half the sky.  They are covered with forests, and the country is inhabited entirely by the woodmen who fell the mountain pines and float the timber rafts down to the Danube.  The steeps are marked with white lines, where the trees have been rolled, or rather thrown from the summit.  Often they descend several miles over rooks and precipices, where the least deviation from