We have made that choice unhesitatingly!
Then let us forthwith stride the Niemen flood,
Let us bear war into her great gaunt land,
And spread our glory there as otherwhere,
So that a stable peace shall stultify
The evil seed-bearing that Russian wiles
Have nourished upon Europe's choked affairs
These fifty years!

[The midsummer night darkens. They all make their bivouacs
and sleep.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Something is tongued afar.

DISTANT VOICE IN THE WIND

The hostile hatchings of Napoleon's brain
Against our Empire, long have harassed us,
And mangled all our mild amenities.
So, since the hunger for embranglement
That gnaws this man, has left us optionless,
And haled us recklessly to horrid war,
We have promptly mustered our well-hardened hosts,
And, counting on our call to the most High,
Have forthwith set our puissance face to face
Against Napoleon's.--Ranksmen! officers!
You fend your lives, your land, your liberty.
I am with you. Heaven frowns on the aggressor.

SPIRIT IRONIC

Ha! "Liberty" is quaint, and pleases me,
Sounding from such a soil!

[Midsummer-day breaks, and the sun rises on the right, revealing
the position clearly. The eminence overlooks for miles the river
Niemen, now mirroring the morning rays. Across the river three
temporary bridges have been thrown, and towards them the French
masses streaming out of the forest descend in three columns.

They sing, shout, fling their shakos in the air and repeat words
from the proclamation, their steel and brass flashing in the sun.
They narrow their columns as they gain the three bridges, and begin
to cross--horse, foot, and artillery.

NAPOLEON has come from the tent in which he has passed the night
to the high ground in front, where he stands watching through his
glass the committal of his army to the enterprise. DAVOUT, NEY,
MURAT, OUDINOT, Generals HAXEL and EBLE, NARBONNE, and others
surround him.

It is a day of drowsing heat, and the Emperor draws a deep breath
as he shifts his weight from one puffed calf to the other. The
light cavalry, the foot, the artillery having passed, the heavy
horse now crosses, their glitter outshining the ripples on the
stream.

A messenger enters. NAPOLEON reads papers that are brought, and
frowns.]

NAPOLEON

The English heads