The heaven can speak in thunder loud
And rend to dust both them and thee.”
There is a temporary pause in the revels, but at the Queen’s command they are resumed with a quick-step introduced by the pipes and full of the genuine Scotch spirit and bustle, the “Fal lal” trio and chorus still accompanying it. It is interrupted afresh by a repetition of the psalm (“A Hand of Fire was on the Wall”), after which John Knox enters. With his entrance the gay music closes and the work assumes a gloomy tragic cast as the dialogue proceeds and the terrible incidents of the prophecy are unfolded. It is a relief when they join in a hopeful duet (“E’en if Earth should wholly fail me”) which is very quiet and melodious. It leads to the Queen’s farewell, a quaintly-written bit, with an old-fashioned cadenza, followed by the final chorus, which takes up a theme in the same joyous spirit as the opening one:—
“Hence with evil omen,
Doleful bird of night,
Who in tears of women
Takest chief delight!
Think not to alarm her,
As with mystic power;
Nought shall ever harm her,