Hartzel— Then why this
Summoning of the men? Are we to have war?
(Fritz and Rudolph, talking together, walk back among the trees.)
Canzler—Hartzel, the past and present are two limbs
On one tree. Though the one bears withered leaves
And these on this around us here are green,
The trunk is the same; the sap is the same;
The new fruit is the old fruit. What to-day
Is Wiglaf fleeing to the ocean isles
But the whole Saxon race? What is his harp
In ashes but our homes and all this land?
Are those graves yonder old? Were these, our scars, (Opening his bosom.)
Handed down from our fathers? When we start
Alarmed in the night, is it the past we fear?
There is no past to things that have been dead.
It is a scabbard empty of its sword.
What shall we do? Accept their Faith?
Hartzel— No, no.
Canzler—Without it, we must steal the air we breath
And thank Val-father if we get it then.
Their blades are out; shall we not lift our shields?
Wolves are we? Wolves are not hunted so.
Bears have the caves; must our cave be the grave?
There is no room there. How then can we die?
After his great meal, Death hath lain him down.
Famine, the gleaner, has the field. There is
No plot unreaped, no sheaf unflailed. The barns
Are stuffed to breaking with the dead. And we,
In this great carnage, in this harvest-home,
The last few straws whisked from the threshing-floor,
Hunted by that old Hunger of the south
From field to wood, from wood to darker wood,
Far up strange rivers and—down under them—
Hartzel, remember; when we fall, there goes
Down the whole North. We alone stand. Of all
Val-father's oaks, there's but one acorn left
That can re-forest and make green the North.
Rudolph and you and I and the rest, save one,
Are, as it were, its protecting shell. Off there,
A sword is coming toward us, and shall we
With hands down take the point and hear the unborn
Wail of that child that should have filled the north
With shouts and wound his horn upon its hills?
Behind him, in array, the dead tribes come
On fire for the south; their umbered shields
Upon the gunwales lour; and shall the snake
Swallow the haven where that host must land?
See the North die? Never. (He turns as if to call Rudolph.)
Hartzel—Accept their Faith,
We need not.
Canzler—Die?
Hartzel—We need not. (A pause.) We might flee.
Canzler— (Emphatically.)
Canzler will never vote to flee.
Fritz— Hear that?
Canzler will never vote to flee. (Coming forward.)
Nor Fritz, chief.