Advance--come forth from thy Tyrolean ground, Dear Liberty! stern Nymph of soul untamed; Sweet Nymph, O rightly of the mountains named! Through the long chain of Alps from mound to mound And o'er the eternal snows, like Echo, bound; 5 Like Echo, when the hunter train at dawn Have roused her from her sleep: and forest-lawn, Cliffs, woods and caves, her viewless steps resound And babble of her pastime!--On, dread Power! With such invisible motion speed thy flight, 10 Through hanging clouds, from craggy height to height, Through the green vales and through the herdsman's bower-- That all the Alps may gladden in thy might, Here, there, and in all places at one hour. FOOTNOTES: [A] In _The Friend_, October 26.--ED. III FEELINGS OF THE TYROLESE Composed 1809.--Published 1809[A] The Land we from our fathers had in trust, And to our children will transmit, or die: This is our maxim, this our piety; And God and Nature say that it is just. That which we _would_ perform in arms--we must! 5 We read the dictate in the infant's eye; In the wife's smile; and in the placid sky; And, at our feet, amid the silent dust Of them that were before us.--Sing aloud Old songs, the precious music of the heart! 10 Give, herds and flocks, your voices to the wind! While we go forth, a self-devoted crowd, With weapons grasped in fearless hands,[1] to assert Our virtue, and to vindicate mankind. VARIANTS: [1] 1837. With weapons in the fearless hand, 1809. FOOTNOTES: [A] In _The Friend_, December 21.--ED. IV "ALAS! WHAT BOOTS THE LONG LABORIOUS QUEST" Composed 1809.--Published 1809[A] Alas! what boots the long laborious quest Of moral prudence, sought through good and ill; Or pains[1] abstruse--to elevate the will, And[2] lead us on to that transcendent rest Where every passion shall the sway attest 5 Of Reason, seated on her sovereign hill; What is it but a vain and curious skill, If sapient Germany must lie deprest, Beneath the brutal sword?--Her haughty Schools Shall blush; and may not we with sorrow say, 10 A few strong instincts and a few plain rules, Among the herdsmen of the Alps, have wrought More for mankind at this unhappy day Than all the pride of intellect and thought? See the paper by Alois Brandl appended to this series of sonnets, p. 218. Wordsworth had probably no means of knowing anything of Fichte's "Addresses to the German Nation," delivered weekly in Berlin, from December 1807 to March 1808. (See _Fichte_, by Professor Adamson, pp. 84-91.)--ED. VARIANTS: [1] 1815. ... pain ... 1809. [2] 1815. Or ... 1809. FOOTNOTES: