THE HILLS WERE MADE FOR FREEDOM.

  When freedom from her home was driven,
    ’Mid vine-clad vales of Switzerland,
  She sought the glorious Alps of heaven,
  And there, ’mid cliffs by lightnings riven,
    Gathered her hero-band.

  And still outrings her freedom-song,
    Amid the glaciers sparkling there,
  At Sabbath bell, as peasants throng
  Their mountain fastnesses along,
    Happy, and free as air.

  The hills were made for freedom; they
    Break at a breath the tyrant’s rod;
  Chains clank in valleys; there the prey
  Writhes ’neath Oppression’s heel alway: 
    Hills bow to none but God!

WILLIAM GOLDSMITH BROWN.

* * * * *

SWITZERLAND.

FROM “WILLIAM TELL.”

    Once Switzerland was free!  With what a pride
  I used to walk these hills,—­look up to heaven,
  And bless God that it was so!  It was free
  From end to end, from cliff to lake ’twas free! 
  Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks,
  And plough our valleys, without asking leave;
  Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow
  In very presence of the regal sun! 
  How happy was I in it then!  I loved
  Its very storms.  Ay, often have I sat
  In my boat at night, when, midway o’er the lake,
  The stars went out, and down the mountain gorge
  The wind came roaring,—­I have sat and eyed
  The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled
  To see him shake his lightnings o’er my head,
  And think—­I had no master save his own!

JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

* * * * *

MAKE WAY FOR LIBERTY!

[Battle of Sempach, fourteenth century.]

    “Make way for Liberty!”—­he cried;
  Made way for Liberty, and died! 
    In arms the Austrian phalanx stood,
  A living wall, a human wood! 
  A wall, where every conscious stone
  Seemed to its kindred thousands grown;
  A rampart all assaults to bear,
  Till time to dust their frames should wear;
  A wood like that enchanted grove
  In which with fiends Rinaldo strove,
  Where every silent tree possessed
  A spirit prisoned in its breast,
  Which the first stroke of coming strife
  Would startle into hideous life: 
  So dense, so still, the Austrians stood,
  A living wall, a human wood! 
  Impregnable their front appears,
  All horrent with projected spears,
  Whose polished points before them shine,
  From flank to flank, one brilliant line,
  Bright as the breakers’ splendors run
  Along the billows to the sun.