And watch'd with eager transport every blow,
And drank each murmur that to death consign'd
The noblest, wisest, bravest of mankind,--
When ev'n the gazing crowd was doom'd to feel
The fury of his yet unsated steel,--
'Twas then thou met thy fate,--unshared by me!
Thou fell'st, and with thee Sweden's liberty!
Thy spouse, thy daughter, wrapp'd in fetters lie;
Thy son, self-exiled, quits his native sky!"--

He paused, and starting from the verdant ground
With hurried footsteps paced the forests round,
Stung with fierce grief, 'till the full tide of woes
Subsiding sunk, and calmer thoughts arose.

While yet he roams beneath the shady groves,
And tears gush forth at every step he roves;
Sleep's humid vapours lessening on his eyes,
Ernestus rose, and mark'd the changing skies.
And now a furze-clad eminence he found,
That wide o'erlook'd the immensity of ground:
From this, with eye insatiate, he admires
Woods, hamlets, fields, and awe-commanding spires.
And seeks where first to steer his fateful flight,
Safe under covert of the quiet night.
Wide to the left the blue-tinged river roll'd,
And faintly tipped with eve's departing gold,
The village rose: half-shaded, on the right
A sloping hill appeared to bound the sight:
From its hoar summit to the midmost vale,