state.
  Bitter is life!
  Bitter, bitter even to the gods, is life!

Father Hudson. Sons and daughters, sole feeders of my life,
  By these new-coming white men I am destroyed.
  My feet are burned in Manhattan, my thighs in the Mohawk,
  While in the Adirondacks they blaze enduring ruin.

[The leaders speak, not sing, except as otherwise noted.]

Leader of Men. Alas! little knows he that his kingdom is of nothing but of change and pain.

Leader of Women. Foolish god that must await the baptism of humanity!

Leader of Men. Father! these things must be: therefore endure. Lo, thy old trees are as grass; thy ancient summits as fresh ant-hills. Chaldea sends thee this message, father; Egypt salutes thee; Greece sends thee this song; a song of tribulation. For there is no short cut to Antiquity: therefore endure.

Father Hudson. Woe, woe, woe is me!

Leader of Men. Untutored God! Mind ragged as thy hills, thou must accept the refining pain.

Father Hudson. Woe, woe, woe is me!

Leader of Women. Peace, Father! Do not whine. Because thou hast been spared thou art soft-minded. Because thou wast spared thou art a child.

Leader of Men. When thy hills shall have been steeped for a thousand years in history, then thou wilt be patient.

Leader of Women. What thou feelest is not the axe nor the fire-brand, but the Spirit of Man moving in thy demesnes.

Leader of Men. Lo, where it comes! Lo, where the shadow falls!

[Enter Benedict Arnold. He is in the Uniform of an American General. He limps.]

Both Choruses. A light thing is man and his suffering very little.

If he can but endure for a short time, death saves him. Lo, his release cometh and his happiness is long.

Fame forever follows in the steps of the just man: an unending life springs up behind him.

Children follow him: a good father's life is a lamp that burns in the heart of the son.

How short is the struggle of the greatest hero, and how long his fame!
Save me from pride and from the expectation of praise from men.

Arnold. He may not come.—
  What if it were a ruse to capture me?—
  The whole proceeding cloaked in infamy,
  And no faith in the matter?
  André should be here. André is a man
  Of sterling honor, and will keep his faith.
  My secret's in his hand.—My change of heart
  Must to His Majesty have long been known,
  And he will praise me for it. Civil war
  Knows no such thing as treason; change of sides,
  The victory of reason in the heart,
  Makes Loyalist turn Whig. Montgomery,
  Richard Montgomery, was honor's darling;
  And when his body fell, scaling Quebec,
  Down the sheer rock it left a track of light
  Which sped in opposition towards the stars
  Bearing his fame. He was an officer
  In the King's army ere he found our own.
  Did conscience fret the gallant Irishman
  To think what uniform was on his back
  When he so died? What if in that assault
  I had died too, my name had ranked with his
  In song and monument; unfading laurels
  Had shed their brazen lustre o'er our brows,
  And we, like demigods, had lived forever.
  Was it enough for him, to scale the sky
  Against the slippery adamant of Fame,
  And, giving youth, give all? I have done more.
  All of his early prowess was mine too:
  In everything I match him; and to me
  Remains the hell of glory on the Lakes,
  When with my hand I stopped the British fleet,—
  Stayed them a year: they dreaded to come on.
  And I had done it. There remain my fights
  At Ridgefield, and those shortened days
  At Saratoga, when the fit came on
  And I knew nothing but the act of war,
  And victory coming down, Victory, Victory!
  'Twas I that saved them! Yes, 'twas I that saved you—
  Ye little wranglers with the name of war!
  I beat Burgoyne, I saved the continent,
  The Continental Army and the Cause,
  Washington, Congress, and the whole of you,
  I saved ye,—saved ye,—and I had for it—
  It chokes me still to say it—had for it—
  It wakes me in the night with leaping hatred,—
  Out of my bed I leap to think of it,—
  Hitting me in my sleep the poison comes
  And fangs my heart.—I had a Reprimand!
  I, reprimanded by a sorry crew
  Of politicians—I, I, I——!
  Thus, in my heart for sixteen months of hurt,
  Burns the injustice, clamors the revenge.
  No, no revenge! but justice,
  Nothing but justice—I'll have justice!

Both Choruses. Foolish is the man who thinks upon his wrongs though they be great. The sting is in him; the poison is in himself.

Lo, he accuses others, and the deed of his death is done with his own hand.

Father Hudson. What is the man disturbed about, my children?

Leader of Men. He is a hero and a battle-god:
  The spoils and the rewards he justly won,
  Others have seized, and left his haughty heart
  A withered laurel.

Father Hudson. Surely it was wrong;
  The hero should receive the hero's meed.

Leader of Men. The gods that made him hero had left out
  The drop of meekness which preserves the rest
  From self-destruction.

Father Hudson. Will he kill himself?

Leader of Men. More than a suicide.—
  A living death
  Takes up its habitation in his heart.

Father Hudson. Little I understand, but greatly pity.
  You, who have mastered all philosophy,
  Can surely soothe him.

Leader of Men. None can reach the man.
  He is beyond the boundaries of speech,
  And goes the paths of blindness.
  Would'st thou, O Father, see the invisible,
  And know what agitates your placid mind?

Father Hudson. Show me: I can receive it.

[The following Invocation is sung by the Leader of the Women in a clear contralto voice.]

Leader of Women. Spirit of the unseen habitation,
  Walking distress,
  Blighting presence, Nemesis, Evil,
  Good-in-Darkness,
  Passing from breast to breast,
  Reaching easily all men,
  And the vine in the orchard,
  And the thick clusters of the grape,
  And the bending branches of the young peach trees,
  When the south wind blows death upon their pride,—
  O intimate undoing! In what form walkest thou here?

Treason. [Without.] Who calls?

Leader of Men. One who knows thee well enough: thou need'st not hide.

[Enter Treason.]

Leader of Men. [To Father Hudson.] Behold the unsleeping fiend that lives in him! His name is Treason.

Treason. Art thou there, Benedict?

Arnold. [Aside.] Why not? 'Tis