The Chorus
O Lord, who wert our free-born fathers’ Guide,
Judge us for our unalterable intent;
Govern us, God, with Thy still government,
Telling our fathers how their sons have died.
[Before the singing is done, all of the people have vanished within the Meeting House. When the stage is emptied, the Chronicler rises.]
The Chronicler
The instant is delivered into time.
[He sits and Minute Men come up the Bedford Road. They are armed. They cross the stage in groups of three to twelve and go out by the Concord Road. The music quickens once more. The light is the most brilliant of full afternoon.
People come out of the houses and the paths and peer excitedly up the Concord Road. Scattered shots begin to be audible from that direction. The knots of people point in triumphant excitement up the road. Suddenly they withdraw, scattering in excited confusion. Shouts and shots sound nearer and closer together. Then the British, routed and retreating from Concord, surge through the Common and out behind the Meeting House and there are shots, too, from there. The huzzas of the colonists all but drown the shouts and musketry. About the Meeting House a cloud rises that may be dust but is presently seen to be steam. The stage darkens. Only the wild music and the shoutings continue and, in the midst of the steam curtain, Freedom, more gorgeous than ever, shouts louder than the rest, her arms madly lifted to heaven. The steam is many colored, then it dies to the single figure. Then it is darkness and the music falls with it. Then the steam is gone and the Meeting House with it and the Buckman Tavern and all other evidences of Lexington Common are gone and in their place is a new scene altogether.]
Part Two
“Political Freedom”