Above me are the Alps, The palaces of nature, whose vast walls Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, And throned eternity in icy halls Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls The avalanche, - the thunderbolt of snow! All that expands the spirit, yet appalls, Gathers around these summits, as to show How earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man below. But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan, There is a spot should not be passed in vain, - Morat! the proud, the patriot field! where man May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain, Nor blush for those who conquered on that plain; Here Burgundy bequeathed his tombless host, A bony heap, through ages to remain, Themselves their monument; - the Stygian coast Unsepulchred they roamed, and shrieked each wandering ghost. While Waterloo with Cannae's carnage vies, Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand; They were true glory's stainless victories, Won by the unambitious heart and hand Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band, All unbought champions in no princely cause Of vice-entailed corruption; they no land Doomed to bewail the blasphemy of laws Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DOMESDAY BOOK: LILLI ALM by EDGAR LEE MASTERS AN ODE TO THE FRAMERS OF THE FRAME BILL by GEORGE GORDON BYRON IMITATION OF CHAUCER by ALEXANDER POPE ODES I, 9. TO WINTER by QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS |