my song!

From far away comes the sound as of mandolins.

SEELCHEN. [Clasping her breast] My heart--it is leaving me!

THE COW HORN. Hear my song!

From the distance floats the piping of a Shepherd's reed.

SEELCHEN. [Curving her hand at her ears] The piping! Ah!

THE COW HORN. Stay with me, Seelchen!

THE WINE HORN. Come with me, Seelchen!

THE COW HORN. I give thee certainty!

THE WINE HORN. I give you chance!

THE COW HORN. I give thee peace.

THE WINE HORN. I give you change.

THE COW HORN. I give thee stillness.

THE WINE HORN. I give you voice.

THE COW HORN. I give thee one love.

THE WINE HORN. I give you many.

SEELCHEN. [As if the words were torn from her heart] Both, both--I
will love!

And suddenly the Peak of THE GREAT HORN speaks.

THE GREAT HORN. And both thou shalt love, little soul! Thou shalt
lie on the hills with Silence; and dance in the cities with
Knowledge. Both shall possess thee! The sun and the moon on the
mountains shall burn thee; the lamps of the town singe thy wings.
small Moth! Each shall seem all the world to thee, each shall seem
as thy grave! Thy heart is a feather blown from one mouth to the
other. But be not afraid! For the life of a man is for all loves in
turn. 'Tis a little raft moored, then sailing out into the blue; a
tune caught in a hush, then whispering on; a new-born babe, half
courage and half sleep. There is a hidden rhythm. Change.
Quietude. Chance. Certainty. The One. The Many. Burn on--thou
pretty flame, trying to eat the world! Thou shaft come to me at
last, my little soul!

THE VOICES and THE FLOWER-BELLS peal out.

SEELCHEN, enraptured, stretches her arms to embrace the sight
and sound, but all fades slowly into dark sleep.

SCENE III

The dark scene again becomes glamorous. SEELCHEN is seen with her
hand stretched out towards the Piazza of a little town, with a plane
tree on one side, a wall on the other, and from the open doorway of
an Inn a pale path of light. Over the Inn hangs a full golden moon.
Against the wall, under the glimmer of a lamp, leans a youth with the
face of THE WINE HORN, in a crimson dock, thrumming a mandolin, and
singing:

"Little star soul
Through the frost fields of night
Roaming alone, disconsolate--
From out the cold
I call thee in
Striking my dark mandolin