Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79. | | | | Switzerland: Lucerne, the Lake | | The Chapel of Tell (On the Lake of Lucerne) | | Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814–1902) |
| | | ON this green platform with its chapel small | |
| Embowered, the centre of the mountain land, | |
| Take, holy Freedom, take for aye thy stand; | |
| And hither from all regions ever call | |
| Thy sons to thy perpetual festival, | 5 |
| Or bid them drink, a sacramental band, | |
| From Grütli’s founts that rose at thy command, | |
| There where the three deliverers vowed the fall | |
| Of Power unjust. Night heard those whispered tones: | |
| Have they not found large echoes in the world? | 10 |
| Have they not been like God’s own thunder hurled | |
| In ruin down on all opprobrious thrones? | |
| All sway that, deifying lawless might, | |
| On that doth build, and not on God and on the right? | | | | |
|
|
