XXVIII.
Then on the silence of the snows there lay
A Sabbath’s quiet sunshine—and its bell
Fill’d the hush’d air awhile, with lonely sway;
For the stream’s voice was chain’d by winter’s spell,
The deep wood-sounds had ceased. But rock and dell
Rang forth, ere long, when strains of jubilee
Peal’d from the mountain churches, with a swell
Of praise to Him who stills the raging sea—
For now the strife was closed, the glorious Alps were free!
[228] Senn, the name given to a herdsman among the Swiss Alps.
[229] Fohnwind, the south-east wind, which frequently lays waste the country before it.
[230] Walter Furst, the father-in-law of Tell.
[231] Werner Stauffacher, who had been urged by his wife to rouse and unite his countrymen for the deliverance of Switzerland.
[232] Erni, Arnold Melchthal.
[233] The Lammer-Geyer, the largest kind of Alpine eagle.
[234] The eyes of his aged father had been put out by the orders of the Austrian governor.
[235] Forest-Sea—the lake of the Four Cantons is frequently so called.