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.]