ou plant a tree?

THE YOUTH

Ah, it comes of foreign race,
And its heart toward home is yearning;
That is why we fear its turning
From its new abiding-place.

GENIUS

That is why you plant it deep,
With the soil its roots encase,
That its blessings you may keep
In its new abiding-place?

THE MAIDEN

To her native land that bind her
Many, many are the ties--
All that she has left behind her
In her childhood's paradise:
All her mother's fond embraces,
And the love of noble brothers,
And her sisters' tender bosoms.
Can we then in equal measures,
Can the world, supply a price
For such pleasures,
For such treasures?

GENIUS

Love can reach to any distance,
Is not bound by far or near.
As the fire is undiminished
When another flame is kindled
With its heat, to glow more clear,
So that has no tie to bind her,
Which of old she held most dear:
Though she has left love behind her,
She will find love dwelling here.

THE MOTHER

She has come from halls of state,
Rich with gold and crystal sheen;
Can our hills please one so great,
Where for gold we boast but sunshine,
And our wealth is meadows green?

GENIUS

In a heart of princely kind
Much is hidden from your sense.
Know, then, that a noble mind
Puts the greatness into living,
Never needs to draw it thence.

THE YOUTH

Oh, lovely strangers, teach us to retain her!
Oh, teach us to find favor in her sight!
We long with perfumed garlands to enchain her
Within our homeland, never to take flight.

GENIUS

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,