_Leader of Men_. Father, thou askest things no man can answer.
_Father Hudson_. If these things could be known, what man would follow his own desires? Fear overtaketh me in thinking of them. I thank the gods that my channel is laid, I cannot change it. The man seems to me like one who should place a lake on a hilltop and cry to it, Stay there! He hath wrestled against thunder. He would lift the rocks with his back; and he lies crushed beneath them. Can he not repent? Shall he never find out that fire is hot? Must he die still unapprised 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?
_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.