The sun declines slowly, and blessing thee, O Lord; we are going to sleep in the monastery so that the dawn may find us in the forest.
THE FOREST OF MALVERNE
Every day, every day, flights of anguished birds see their nests crushed and their eggs broken when the trees sway with shaking branches.
THE BIRDS
It is the happy hour of twilight when the girls and boys come to roll on the grass. And all of them have kisses that want to fall like over-ripe fruit or like the egg when it is about to be laid. Do you see them there, do you see them dance, muse, haunt, chant from dusk to the dawn, his pale sister?
A RED-HAIRED MONK
(In the middle of the Cortège)
I am afraid to live and I should like to die. Convulsions of earth. Labor! O lost time...
THE BIRDS
Gay! Gay! the broken eggs
The ready-made omelette cooked on a downy fire
Here! Here!
Take to the right
Turn to the left
Straight ahead
Behind the fallen oak
There and everywhere.