HE YEARS

So doth the Will objectify Itself
In likeness of a sturdy people's wrath,
Which takes no count of the new trends of time,
Trusting ebbed glory in a present need.--
What if their strength should equal not their fire,
And their devotion dull their vigilance?--
Uncertainly, by fits, the Will doth work
In Brunswick's blood, their chief, as in themselves;
It ramifies in streams that intermit
And make their movement vague, old-fashioned, slow
To foil the modern methods counterposed!

[Evening descends on the city, and it grows dusk. The soldiers
being dismissed from duty, some young officers in a frolic of
defiance halt, draw their swords and whet them on the steps of
the FRENCH AMBASSADOR'S residence as they pass. The noise of
whetting is audible through the street.]

CHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]

The soul of a nation distrest
Is aflame,
And heaving with eager unrest
In its aim
To assert its old prowess, and stouten its chronicled fame!

SEMICHORUS I

It boils in a boisterous thrill
Through the mart,
Unconscious well-nigh as the Will
Of its part:
Would it wholly might be so, and feel not the forthcoming smart!

SEMICHORUS II

In conclaves no voice of reflection
Is heard,
King, Councillors, grudge circumspection
A word,
And victory is visioned, and seemings as facts are averred.

CHORUS

Yea, the soul of a nation distrest
Is aflame,
And heaving with eager unrest
In its aim
At supreme desperations to blazon the national name!

[Midnight strikes, lights are extinguished one by one, and the
scene disappears.]

SCENE IV

THE FIELD OF JENA

[Day has just dawned through a grey October haze. The French,
with their backs to the nebulous light, loom out and show
themselves to be already under arms; LANNES holding the centre,
NEY the right, SOULT the extreme right, and AUGEREAU the left.
The Imperial Guard and MURAT'S cavalry are drawn up on the
Landgrafenberg, behind the centre of the French position. In
a valley stretching along to the rear of this height flows
northward towards the E