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- To flash forth, to go out, and be naught at a gulp-
[Pulls himself together as though in terror, and goes deeper in among the mists; stillness for awhile; then he cries:]
- Is there no one, no one in all the turmoil,-
- in the void no one, no one in heaven-!
[He comes forward again further down, throws his hat upon the ground, and tears at his hair. By degrees a stillness comes over him.]
- So unspeakably poor, then, a soul can go
- back to nothingness, into the grey of the mist.
- Thou beautiful earth, be not angry with me
- that I trampled thy grasses to no avail.
- Thou beautiful sun, thou hast squandered away
- thy glory of light in an empty hut.
- There was no one within it to hearten and warm;-
- the owner, they tell me, was never at home.
- Beautiful sun and beautiful earth,
- you were foolish to bear and give light to my mother.
- The spirit is niggard and nature lavish;
- and dearly one pays for one's birth with one's life.-
- I will clamber up high, to the dizziest peak;
- I will look once more on the rising sun,
- gaze till I'm tired o'er the promised land;
- then try to get snowdrifts piled up over me.
- They can write above them: "Here No One lies buried;"
- and afterwards,-then-! Let things go as they can.
CHURCH-GOERS [singing on the forest path].
- Oh, morning thrice blessed,
- when the tongues of God's kingdom
- struck
