INTERMEZZO
Father Hudson. Is it finished?
Leader of Men. No; it is begun.
Father Hudson. His pain enters into me. I must endure these things. Woe is me that ever I was born of the brooks or received by the meadows! The pains of new birth get hold on me, and I see that life is sorrow. Why could ye not let me alone, ye pangs of knowledge; or go by on the other side, ye piercings of understanding? Must I be bound up forever with sin, and feel the hand of unevenness on my loins?
Both Choruses. So it is with all creatures of a deep spirit. They are caught with the net; they are frozen in the ice of God; they are very helpless, and cry for relief day and night.
Accept thy pains, for they are good. Reason not against fate but lay down thy will in earnest.
Father Hudson. Will the man come again?
Leader of Men. Once more shalt thou see him, and remember him forever. Lo, now he comes as the wounded lion, as the tiger bereft of his prey and wounded by the hunter. [Enter Arnold, a pistol in one hand, a letter clutched in the other. During this speech he crosses the stage.] His plot has failed and his iniquity is as a broken toy. Wrecked is all his life. He flees like a robber from his own land. Hills look your last upon Benedict! Ye Highlands, filled with clouds, and ye little streams that jet along the crags, this is your general. Will he remember you in his dreams, think you, or find himself back among you in his reveries? In his lone island, in his long years of silence, ye will return to him. Bid him adieu without bitterness, thou rocky castle! For his punishment shall be within himself day by day. [Exit Arnold.] Behold, [Shades his eyes with his hand as if observing Arnold] he is on the shore; his barge of eight oars obeys the signal; he stands in the prow; the rowers smite the water. With fury they row, for he commands them; with fury and terrible ire they row, for they fear the man. He has drawn a white handkerchief from his breast, though his pistol never leaves his hand. The prow of the British sloop of war looms above his barge. They see his signal. They are letting down the gangway. They are taking him up into the British vessel.
Chorus of Men. So down the torrent of infamy,
So into the bosom of Hell,
O Vulture, thou bearest him!
Chorus of Women. Naught brings he in hand to his captors;
Naught but the coin of his soul;
Empty-handed goeth he.
Chorus of Men. The great cheater here is cheated;
The great traitor here betrayed:
Where is his bargain?
Chorus of Women. Bare life he saves by the purchase,
Merely the breath of life;
Merely the fountain of pain.
Chorus of Men. Yea, out of the lips of aversion,
Yea, out of the hand of contempt,
He receiveth his price.
Chorus of Women. Pride is the hero's undoing,
Pride is the sin of the great.
Lo, he licketh the crumbs!
Both Choruses. So down the torrent of infamy,
So into the bosom of Hell;
O Vulture, thou bearest him!
Father Hudson. Is all treason punished like this among men?
Leader of Men. Father, thou askest things no man can answer.
Father Hudson. If these things could be known, what man would follow his own desires? Fear overtaketh me in thinking of them. I thank the gods that my channel is laid, I cannot change it. The man seems to me like one who should place a lake on a hilltop and cry to it, Stay there! He hath wrestled against thunder. He would lift the rocks with his back; and he lies crushed beneath them. Can he not repent? Shall he never find out that fire is hot? Must he die still unapprised of his own foolishness?
Leader of Men. The future is a hard thing to know.
Father Hudson. Are there not charms that open mountain sides,
And show what shall come forth?
Leader of Men. All things to come
Are come already,—save the power to see them.
Father Hudson. Would I might know the ending of that man,
Whose fate and story clinging to my name
Do make me human!
Leader of Men. Human was his end,
And very moving. Wouldst thou wait awhile,
Or see the story now?
Father Hudson. Now, now, my son!
Invocation. [Sung in contralto voice, as before, by the Leader of Women.] Storm-shadowed, precipitous valley, And ye threatening towers of stone that hold back the mountains, Letting the dark stream pass; Storm King, and Donderberg, homes of reverberant thunder; Thou steep theatre, where his story trod its stage, And where the circling thought of it returns With ever profounder, ever accumulating echoes, Calling to Humanity, compelling attention, provoking the unexpected tear,— Open yet once again your treasured legend; Out of the encrusted box, the precious parchment, Out of the vestment-chambers, the hallowed rags.
[As the verse now changes its form, the music also slightly changes character.]
Lo, now, our holiday calls on the past for its lessons,
Lo, while the flame of the frost-bite fingers the dale,
Lo, in the lambent blaze of autumnal quiescence,
Flows Father Hudson, at peace, through his populous vale.
Fruit trees garland his margins,—vines, and the brazen
Hillocks of billowy rye o'er the undulous deep
Stretch to the Berkshires, proclaiming the conquering season;
Dash on the Catskills, repulsed by the envious steep.
Woe, royal river! In grief I gaze on thy harvest,
Anxious to me my thought as thy riches unroll.
Mortal, beware lest in riotous plenty thou starvest!
Give me the fruits of the spirit, the songs of the soul.
Father Hudson. A sweet voice but sad,—trembling sad.
Leader of Men. Hush, it invokes the craggy wilderness,
And seeks an entrance for its piercing cry.
Leader of Women. [Sings. The music again changing with the metre.]
Give up the scene, give up, ye sordid rocks,
The last of Arnold in his English home,
Which in your bosom lives for evermore,
A deathless picture; England cast it out
Not being English, and it shivered on,
Coiling about the world, till it was caught
And locked into your rocky fastnesses
Where it lives ever; and your mountain ribs
Ache with the imposition.