Awake, and after nineteen hundred years.... Bettine, Bettine! the British, they are coming! Rada, you said it--they are coming quickly! They are coming, with the reign of right and law. But, O Bettine! Bettine! will they remember? Are they awake? I only hear their guns. What if they should grow used to it, Bettine, And fail to wipe this horror from the world? God, is there any hope for poor mankind? God, are Thy little nations and Thy weak, Thine innocent, condemned to hell for ever? God, will the strong deliverers break the sword And bring this world at last to Christmas Eve? THE IMPERIAL CHOIR. ÆTERNI PARENTIS SPLENDOREM ÆTERNUM, VELATUM SUB CARNE VIDEBIMUS, DEUM INFANTEM, PANNIS INVOLUTUM, VENITE, ADOREMUS, VENITE, ADOREMUS, VENITE, ADOREMUS DOMINUM. NANKO. Will Christ be born, oh, not in Bethlehem, But in the soul of man, the abode of God? There, in that deep, undying soul of man (I still believe it), that immortal soul, Will they lift up the cross with Christ upon it, The Fool of God, whom intellectual fools, The little fools of dust, in every land, Grinning their _What is Truth?_ still crucify. Could they not thrust their hands into His wounds? His wounds are these--these dead are all His wounds. Bettine! Bettine! the British, they are coming! But you are silent now, so silent now! Will they lift up God's poor old broken Fool, And sleep no more until His kingdom come, His infinite kingdom come? Will they remember? (_He bows his head against the closed door, while the gramophone lifts the chorus of the Imperial Choir over the deepening thunder of the guns_:) NUNC CANTET, EXULTANS, CHORUS ANGELORUM, CANTET NUNC AULA CELESTIUM GLORIA, GLORIA, IN EXCELSIS DEO! VENITE, ADOREMUS, VENITE, ADOREMUS, VENITE, ADOREMUS DOMINUM. INTERCESSION Now the muttering gun-fire dies, Now the night has cloaked the slain, Now the stars patrol the skies, Hear our sleepless prayer again! They who work their country's will, Fight and die for Britain still, Soldiers, but not haters, know _Thou_ must pity friend and foe. Therefore hear, Both for foe and friend, our prayer. Thou whose wounded Hands do reach Over every land and sea, Thoughts too deep for human speech Rise from all our souls to Thee; Deeper than the wrath that burns Round our hosts when day returns; Deeper than the peace that fills All these trenched and waiting hills. Hear, O hear! Both for foe and friend, our prayer.