Way down south in the land of cotton,
Cinnamon seed and sandy bottom,
Look away, look away, look away, look away!
That’s the land where I was born in....
Other Voices
Over there! Over there! Over there! Over there! Over there! The Yanks are coming....
[By this the light has gone from the people and shines only upon Freedom who turns and holds her hands out over all the multitude. A terrific flight of rockets bursts with a terrific explosion. Then there is absolute silence.]
Freedom
(Coming through the crowds, back down the stair.)
Children of Freedom,
Out of the mind of God,
Hear ye the truth—
Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees!...
Can ye grow grapes from thorns or figs from thistles?
What man, by taking thought, can add a cubit to his stature?
Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees!
To him that hath shall be given. From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath....
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth....
Seek and ye shall find....
[With each line of the words of Jesus she has come a little further down the stair. At the last, she stands above the Chronicler’s throne and, on either side of her, two youths kneel, who have followed her down from the Choir. When she has come to the bottom of the slope and when the darkness has taken all else but her figure, she turns her back upon the audience and her hands go out as though she evoked one further image out of the past. We see it, as light scatters the darkness above her—the Common of Lexington in the cold dawn of the Glorious Morning and the line of Minute Men drawn up across it. The Chronicler rises.]
The Chronicler
One hundred and fifty years ago there was fought upon this place a battle. Out of that battle came a nation and a nation’s race and a race’s vision of freedom.