prised 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._]

Lo, now, our holiday calls on the past for its lessons,
Lo, while the flame of the frost-bite fingers the dale,
Lo, in the lambent blaze of autumnal quiescence,
Flows Father Hudson, at peace, through his populous vale.

Fruit trees garland his margins,--vines, and the brazen
Hillocks of billowy rye o'er the undulous deep
Stretch to the Berkshires, proclaiming the conquering season;
Dash on the Catskills, repulsed by the envious steep.

Woe, royal river! In grief I gaze on thy harvest,
Anxious to me my thought as thy riches unroll.
Mortal, beware lest in riotous plenty thou starvest!
Give me the fruits of the spirit, the songs of the soul.

_Father Hudson_. A sweet voice but sad,--trembling sad.

_Leader of Men_. Hush, it invokes the craggy wilderness,
And seeks an entrance for its piercing cry.

_Leader of Women_. [_Sings. The music again changing with the metre._]
Give up the scene, give up, ye sordid rocks,
The last of Arnold in his English home,
Which in your bosom lives for evermore,
A deathless picture; England cast it out
Not being English, and it shivered on