Her battlements and towers,
From off their rocky steep,
Have cast their trembling shadow
For ages on the deep.
Mountain and lake and valley
A sacred legend know,
Of how the town was saved one night
Three hundred years ago.
Far from her home and kindred
A Tyrol maid had fled,
To serve in the Swiss valleys,
And toil for daily bread;
And every year that fleeted
So silently and fast
Seemed to bear farther from her
The memory of the Past.
She spoke no more of Bregenz
With longing and with tears;
Her Tyrol home seemed faded
In a deep mist of years;
Yet, when her master's children
Would clustering round her stand
She sang them ancient ballads
Of her own native land;
And when at morn and evening
She knelt before God's throne,
The accents of her childhood
Rose to her lips alone.
And so she dwelt: the valley
More peaceful year by year;
When suddenly strange portents
Of some great deed seemed near.
One day, out in the meadow,
With strangers from the town
Some secret plan discussing,
The men walked up and down.
Pages:
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208