 | The poems of Mrs. Emma Catherine Embury |  |
WILLIAM TELL IN CHAINS.
What! does he think that bonds can chain the mind?That dungeon air can taint the spotless soul?
Fond fool! let Gesler wear his princely pomp
If he would know the weight of real chains;
And learn that to the base and crouching slave
All earth is one wide prison house. In vain
They shut me from the blessed light of heaven;
They cannot dim the inward ray that sheds
Such brightness on my spirit. I have dwelt
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High converse with the elements, and gazed
Upon the sun, until his very beams
Became as 'twere a language; shall I seek
To win the smile of princes? I have watched
The storm-clouds gather round the snow-capped cliff,
And, in the rolling thunder, heard the threat
Of an offended God; shall I bow down
Before the wrath of tyrants? Never, never!
When thou canst tame the eagle down to wear
The jesses of the falcon, or canst yoke
The lion to the humble steer, then hope,
Proud Gesler, to behold the brow of Tell
Bending before thy footstool.
| The poems of Mrs. Emma Catherine Embury | |