So have old customs there, from sire to son,
Been handed down, unchanging and unchanged;
Nor will they brook to swerve or turn aside
From the fixed, even tenor of their life.
With grasp of their hard hands they welcomed me--
Took from the walls their rusty falchions down--
And from their eyes the soul of valor flashed
With joyful lustre, as I spoke those names,
Sacred to every peasant in the mountains,
Your own and Walter Fuerst's. Whate'er your voice
Should dictate as the right they swore to do;
And you they swore to follow e'en to death.
So sped I on from house to house, secure
In the guest's sacred privilege--and when
I reached at last the valley of my home,
Where dwell my kinsmen, scattered far and near--
And when I found my father stripped and blind,
Upon the stranger's straw, fed by the alms
Of charity----

STAUFFACHER.
Great heaven!

MELCHTHAL.
Yet wept I not!
No--not in weak and unavailing tears
Spent I the force of my fierce, burning anguish;
Deep in my bosom, like some precious treasure,
I locked it fast, and thought on deeds alone.
Through every winding of the hills I crept--