But even in his dying fear
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear,
A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell,
The fiends below were ringing his knell.
—Robert Southey.
[SOME DEFINITIONS]
Such a poem as this one is called a ballad. A ballad always tells a story; it is never a very long poem; and it is always a poem of the sort that could be set to music and sung.
Each group of lines in any poem is called a stanza, not a verse, as perhaps you have been used to calling it. In this poem you see that there are stanzas of four lines each.
Two lines that rhyme with each other are called a couplet. How many couplets are there in each stanza? Can you find the two words from which the most rhymes are made?
[THE BATTLE OF MORGARTEN]
Can you read this selection thoroughly in four minutes? Some of you can read it in less time than that.
One of the most really democratic countries in the world today is Switzerland, the little republic among the Alps. It has a long and glorious history, for it is the earliest of modern republics. Its sections, instead of being called states, are called cantons. Switzerland originally belonged to Austria, in the early days when Austria was ruled not by an emperor but by a duke. The dukes of Austria were cruel tyrants, and this story tells how the Swiss mountaineers first began to free themselves from Austrian rule, in the battle of Morgarten in the year 1315.
As you read the story, notice:
1. The differences between Swiss and Austrians in numbers and equipment.
2. What gave the Swiss an advantage over the Austrians.
There are people who doubt the story of William Tell and Gessler, the Swiss archer and the Austrian tyrant; but no one can doubt the great and decisive victory won at Morgarten by the Swiss on the 15th of November, 1315. Three cantons beside the lake—Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden: the three Forest Cantons, as they were called, because of their great woods—were resolved to be free of Austrian rule. The Austrian Duke determined to crush them once and for all.