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النشر الإلكتروني

PRINCE HENRY, emerging from the bridge.

I breathe again more freely! Ah, how pleasant
To come once more into the light of day,
Out of that shadow of death! To hear again
The hoof-beats of our horses on firm ground,
And not upon those hollow planks, resounding
With a sepulchral echo, like the clods

On coffins in a churchyard! Yonder lies
The Lake of the Four Forest-Towns, apparelled
In light, and lingering, like a village maiden,
Hid in the bosom of her native mountains,
Then pouring all her life into another's,
Changing her name and being! Overhead,
Shaking his cloudy tresses loose in air,
Rises Pilatus, with his windy pines.

They pass on.

THE DEVIL'S BRIDGE.

PRINCE HENRY and ELSIE crossing, with attendants.

GUIDE.

THIS bridge is called the Devil's Bridge.
With a single arch, from ridge to ridge,
It leaps across the terrible chasm
Yawning beneath us, black and deep,
As if, in some convulsive spasm,
The summits of the hills had cracked,
And made a road for the cataract,
That raves and rages down the steep!

Ha! ha!

LUCIFER, under the bridge.

Never any bridge but this

GUIDE.

Could stand across the wild abyss;

All the rest, of wood or stone,
By the Devil's hand were overthrown.
He toppled crags from the precipice,
And whatsoe'er was built by day
In the night was swept away;
None could stand but this alone.

Ha! ha!

LUCIFER, under the bridge.

GUIDE.

I showed you in the valley a boulder
Marked with the imprint of his shoulder;
As he was bearing it up this way,
A peasant, passing, cried, "Herr Jé!”
And the Devil dropped it in his fright,
And vanished suddenly out of sight!

Ha! ha!

LUCIFER, under the bridge.

GUIDE.

Abbot Giraldus of Einsiedel,
For pilgrims on their way to Rome,
Built this at last, with a single arch,
Under which, on its endless march,
Runs the river, white with foam,
Like a thread through the eye of a needle.
And the Devil promised to let it stand,
Under compact and condition

That the first living thing which crossed
Should be surrendered into his hand,
And be beyond redemption lost.

LUCIFER, under the bridge.

GUIDE.

Ha ha! perdition!

At length, the bridge being all completed,
The Abbot, standing at its head,
Threw across it a loaf of bread,
Which a hungry dog sprang after,
Longfellow.II.

8

And the rocks re-echoed with peals of laughter
To see the Devil thus defeated!

They pass on.

Ha! ha! defeated!

LUCIFER, under the bridge.

For journeys and for crimes like this
I let the bridge stand o'er the abyss!

THE ST. GOTHARD PASS.

PRINCE HENRY.

THIS is the highest point. Two ways the rivers
Leap down to different seas, and as they roll
Grow deep and still, and their majestic presence
Becomes a benefaction to the towns

They visit, wandering silently among them,
Like patriarchs old among their shining tents.

ELSIE.

How bleak and bare it is! Nothing but mosses
Grow on these rocks.

PRINCE HENRY.

Yet are they not forgotten; Beneficent Nature sends the mists to feed them.

ELSIE.

See yonder little cloud, that, borne aloft

So tenderly by the wind, floats fast

away

Over the snowy peaks! It seems to me
The body of St. Catherine, borne by angels!

PRINCE HENRY.

Thou art St. Catherine, and invisible angels Bear thee across these chasms and precipices, Lest thou shouldst dash thy feet against a stone!

ELSIE.

Would I were borne unto my grave, as she was,
Upon angelic shoulders! Even now

I seem uplifted by them, light as air!
What sound is that?

PRINCE HENRY.

The tumbling avalanches!

ELSIE.

How awful, yet how beautiful!

PRINCE HENRY.

These are

The voices of the mountains! Thus they ope
Their snowy lips, and speak unto each other,
In the primeval language, lost to man.

ELSIE.

What land is this that spreads itself beneath us?

Italy! Italy!

PRINCE HENRY.

ELSIE.

Land of the Madonna!

How beautiful it is! It seems a garden

Of Paradise!

PRINCE HENRY.

Nay, of Gethsemane

To thee and me, of passion and of prayer!
Yet once of Paradise. Long years ago
I wandered as a youth among its bowers,
And never from my heart has faded quite
Its memory, that, like a summer sunset,
Encircles with a ring of purple light
All the horizon of my youth.

GUIDE.

O friends!

The days are short, the way before us long;

We must not linger, if we think to reach

The inn at Belinzona before vespers!

They pass on.

AT THE FOOT OF THE ALPS.
A halt under the trees at noon.

PRINCE HENRY.

HERE let us pause a moment in the trembling
Shadow and sunshine of the road-side trees,
And, our tired horses in a group assembling,
Inhale long draughts of this delicious breeze.
Our fleeter steeds have distanced cur attendants;
They lag behind us with a slower pace;
We will await them under the green pendants
Of the great willows in this shady place.
Ho, Barbarossa! how thy mottled haunches
Sweat with this canter over hill and glade!
Stand still, and let these overhanging branches
Fan thy hot sides and comfort thee with shade!

ELSIE.

What a delightful landscape spreads before us,
Marked with a whitewashed cottage here and there!
And, in luxuriant garlands drooping o'er us,
Blossoms of grape-vines scent the sunny air.

PRINCE HENRY.

Hark! what sweet sounds are those, whose accents holy Fill the warm noon with music sad and sweet!

ELSIE.

It is a band of pilgrims, moving slowly

On their long journey, with uncovered feet.

PILGRIMS, chaunting the Hymn of St. Hildebert.
Me receptet Sion illa,

Sion David, urbs tranquilla,

Cujus faber auctor lucis,
Cujus portæ lignum crucis,
Cujus claves lingua Petri,
Cujus cives semper læti,
Cujus muri lapis vivus,
Cujus custos Rex festivus!

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