A noble heart soon finds itself at home—
Creates, in stillness working, its own world:
And as the tree takes hold upon the earth
With eager grasping roots, and soon is fast,
So will a great and doubly royal nature
By its own noble deeds take hold on life.
Love's tender ties soon knit themselves anew—
For where is happiness, there too is home!
ALL THE COUNTRY PEOPLE
Oh, handsome stranger, say how we may chain her,
The fairest, in our quiet vale retain her!
GENIUS
Courage! The help you seek is nigh at hand.
All is not strange to her in this new land.
Me she will know, and my attendant train,
When we have made our names and office plain.
[GENIUS comes forward. The Seven Arts follow him and form a semi-circle about him. As they do so, they display their attributes, which until this moment have been concealed beneath their robes.]
GENIUS (addressing the Crown Princess)
Lo, I am Genius—beauty's lord alone—
And these that follow me the sister Arts.
'Tis we that deck the altar and the throne;
We crown the work that springs from human hearts.
Long have we dealt with thine imperial line;
And she, the noble dame that gave thee birth,
With spotless hand a dedicated shrine
Still keeps for us, a sacred spot of earth.
We follow thee obedient to her sending;
For happiness through us finds perfect ending.
ARCHITECTURE (a mural crown on her head, a golden ship in her right hand)
By Neva's flood thou saw'st me sit at home:
Thy great forefather called me to his side—
And there I built for him a second Rome;
Through me it grew to be an empire's pride.
A paradise of stately pleasure-grounds
Arose beneath the magic of my wand;
And now the busy hum of life resounds
Where once a desert stretched on every hand.
The thunder of the cannon of thy fleet
Alarms the hoary Neptune in his ancient seat.