the sun rising
over the glaciers.

ACT III.

SCENE I.

Court before TELL'S house. TELL with an axe. HEDWIG engaged
in her domestic duties. WALTER and WILHELM in the background
playing with a little cross-bow.

WALTER (sings).

With his cross-bow and his quiver
The huntsman speeds his way,
Over mountain, dale, and river
At the dawning of the day.

As the eagle, on wild pinion,
Is the king in realms of air;
So the hunter claims dominion
Over crag and forest lair.

Far as ever bow can carry
Through the trackless, airy space,
All he sees he makes his quarry,
Soaring bird and beast of chase.

WILHELM (runs forward).
My string has snapped! Wilt mend it for me, father?

TELL.
Not I; a true-born archer helps himself.

[Boys retire.

HEDWIG.
The boys begin to use the bow betimes.

TELL.
'Tis early practice only makes the master.

HEDWIG.
Ah! Would to heaven they never learnt the art!

TELL.
But they shall learn it, wife, in all its points.
Whoe'er would carve an independent way
Through life must learn to ward or plant a blow.

HEDWIG.
Alas, alas! and they will never rest
Contentedly at home.

TELL.
No more can I!
I was not framed by nature for a shepherd.
Restless I must pursue a changing course;
I only feel the flush and joy of life
In starting some fresh quarry every day.

HEDWIG.
Heedless the while of all your wife's alarms
As she sits watching through long hours at home.
For my soul sinks with terror at the tales
The servants tell about your wild adventures.
Whene'er we part my trembling heart forebodes
That you will ne'er come back to me again.
I see you on the frozen mountain steeps,
Missing, perchance, your leap from cliff to cliff;
I see the chamois, with a wild rebound,
Drag you down with him o'er the precipice.
I see the avalanche close o'er your head,
The treacherous ice give way, and you sink down
Entombed alive within its hideous gulf.
Ah! in a hundred varying forms does death
Pursue the Alpine huntsman on his course.
That way of life can surely ne'er be blessed,
Where life and limb are perilled every hour.

TELL.
The man that bears a quick and steady eye,
And trusts to God and his own lusty sinews,
Passes, with scarce a scar, through every danger.
The mountain cannot awe the mountain child.

[Having finished his work, he lays aside his tools.

And now, methinks, the door w