The Evening Before the Battle.
Why are those watchfires gleaming bright, 1
Morgarten, on thy beacon height ? 2
And why are lights ’mid the evening gloom, 3
Flitting like spirits from tomb to tomb ? 4
Why through the calm of each Alpine dell5
Do the warlike notes of the trumpet swell ? 6
And why is the scared flocks’ mournful bleat7
Drown ’d in the trample of hurrying feet ? 8
Why doth the war-whoop, wild and shrill, 9
Re-echo from the snow-clad hill, 10
And the sentry pace his lonely round, 11
O’er thine ancient hallow’d battle-ground ? 12
The morn shall tell. That morning came, 13
Usher’d by smoke-wreath and by flame !14