] Tumble throne, where unrighteousness
is seated! [Throne collapses. Thunder, lightning, storm.] Scatter
like decoys, fortune hunters and outcasts that have placed
yourselves between noble and commoner! [All but bride disappear. To
bride.] You lamb of sacrifice, be free like myself! Now I want to
go out into Nature and see if honor and decency do not still live!
[Bride vanishes; Pehr remains standing, hands to face, until scene
is changed.]
SCENE TWO.
Seashore with wreckage of cast up seaweed, etc. To left an
up-rooted oak-stump, fishing tackle and hulk of a wrecked vessel.
Background: open sea; seamews float on waves. To right cliff-shore
with pine woods; lower down is a hut.
PEHR. Where am I? I breathe freer--All evil thoughts flee! I sense
a perfume as of old romances; I hear a murmur, like far-away
streams; the ground under me is soft as a bed. Ah--it is the
seashore!
O Sea! Thou Mother Earth's good mother!
Be greeted by an old and withered heart
Which comes that it may be by thy moist winds
Swept clean and freshened;
Which comes to thy salt waves for cleansing baths
And healing for the sores the world's lies and madness gave to it.
Blow wind, and fill with thy pure air
My lungs, that breathed in pois'n-filled vapours;
Sing wave, and let mine ear be soothed
By the harmonies of thy pure tones,
As I stand here 'mongst the wreckage on the strand,
A wreck myself, which the breakers cast upon the sand
When the vessel crashed 'gainst the sharp cliff-rocks!
Be greeted, Sea, that nurses healthy thoughts
And recreates the soul in shrunken body
When every spring thy billows break
And gull and swallow chatter 'bove thy wave,
To wak'n anew the joy of life, and strength, and hope!
[Sees hut.
Pages:
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71