Impregnable their front appears,
All horrent with projected spears.
Opposed to these, a hovering band
Contended for their fatherland,

Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke
From manly necks the ignoble yoke;
Marshalled once more at Freedom's call,
They came to conquer or to fall.

And now the work of life and death
Hung on the passing of a breath;
The fire of conflict burned within;
The battle trembled to begin:

Yet, while the Austrians held their ground,
Point for assault was nowhere found;
Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed,
The unbroken line of lances blazed;
That line 't were 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 the 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,
But every freeman was a host,

And felt as though himself were 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.

Unmarked, he stood amid the throng,
In rumination deep and long,

Tiil 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 the uplifting of his brow,

Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.

But 't was 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 crossed from side to side; He bowed among 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 rushed 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!

James Montgomery.

HOW THE CHURCH OF ST. MICHAEL'S WAS

SAVED.

T was long ago, ere ever the signal-gun

IT

That blazed above Fort Sumter had wakened the

North as one;

Long ere the wondrous pillar of battle-cloud and fire Had marked where the unchained millions marched on to their heart's desire.

On the roofs and the glittering turrets, that night, as the sun went down,

The mellow glow of the twilight shone like a jeweled

crown;

And, bathed in the living glory, as the people lifted their eyes,

They saw the pride of the city, the spire of St. Michael's rise

High over the lesser steeples, tipped with a golden ball,

That hung like a radiant planet caught in its earthward fall,

First glimpse of home to the sailor who made the harbor-round,

And last slow-fading vision dear to the outward bound.

F

The gently gathering shadows shut out the waning

light;

The children prayed at their bedsides, as you will pray to-night;

The noise of buyer and seller from the busy mart was

gone;

And in dreams of a peaceful morrow the city slumbered on.

But another light than sunrise aroused the sleeping

street;

For a cry was heard at midnight, and the rush of trampling feet;

Men stared in each other's faces through mingled fire and smoke,

While the frantic bells went clashing, clamorous stroke on stroke.

By the glare of her blazing roof-tree the houseless mother fled,

With the babe she pressed to her bosom shrieking in nameless dread,

While the fire-king's wild battalions scaled wall and capstone high,

And planted their flaring banners against an inky sky.

For the death that raged behind them, and the crash of ruin loud,

To the great square of the city were driven the surging crowd;

Where yet, firm in all the tumult, unscathed by the fiery flood,

With its heavenward-pointing finger the Church of St. Michael stood.

But e'en as they gazed upon it there rose a sudden wail,

A cry of horror, blended with the roaring of the gale, On whose scorching wings up-driven, a single flaming brand

Aloft on the towering steeple clung like a bloody hand.

"Will it fade ?" The whisper trembled from a thousand whitening lips;

Far out in the lurid harbor they watched it from the ships,

A baleful gleam that brighter and ever brighter shone, Like a flickering, trembling will-o'-the-wisp to a steady beacon grown.

"Uncounted gold shall be given to the man whose brave right hand,

For the love of the periled city, plucks down yon burning brand!"

So cried the mayor of Charleston, that all the people heard;

But they looked each one at his fellow; and no man spoke a word.

Who is it leans from the belfry, with face upturned to the sky,

Clings to a column, and measures the dizzy spire with his eye?

Will he dare it, the hero undaunted, that terrible sickening height?

Or will the hot blood of his courage freeze in his veins at the sight?