THE STANDARD BEARER: Reverently wipe the foam from his lips! We must go and leave him alone! Let him repose in his place; Tête-d'or, Who, never knowing human incertitude, held to his one inextinguishable desire, is now no more. FIRST CAPTAIN: The future is only a landscape reflected in the water, the past is of less account than a beechnut and the present is nothing at all. THE MASTER OF THE CAVALRY: See, it is time for us to return, for yonder beyond the mountain, Leaving a road piled high with sorrow, the sun is engulfed in mist! It is the moment when in summer at the time when cherries are ripe and the air is filled with a universal song And the children bathe above the mills and naked eat their lunches, while a blanched half-moon is suspended in the sky; Trees, waters, the borders of ditches, the expanse of ripening fields flame beneath the mysterious splendor of the hour of Saturn. --Now that it is Autumn perhaps some old woman at home, mother or servant-maid, Thinks of us as she gathers in the washing from the line or sits in the courtyard working at her sewing. The air still sweet grows fresher; the towering walnut trees Cover the church with shade and the rooks are drowsing upon the cross! THE CENTURION: A gorgonian lamentation fills the mountains and the valleys, The Bear of night has seized the sun between his paws And the spacious forests of oaks and pines have shuddered at the sight. Birds, that pass in the desert day, flee more swiftly, far away, wild geese and herons! And bearing this news Arrest with a long and piercing cry the traveller on his road, so that he says to himself, "What has it seen?" "Whence does it come? What does it mean, this mournful cry in the distance?" What furnace fires these cantons of gold? What chase leads the wind in the desert and the country of infinite trees? What lament is this that rises? Certainly someone great is going to die and that is why the wind is raised, That it may bear away the flame of his soul, and that the oak may be shaken to its base. It is Nature who demands that she should receive again her illustrious child! She has lent him to us long enough to perform the task ordained, And now she takes him back again, the cycle being completed. And we, insensible and stupid, We have let him slip from our hands like flashing gold that falls and sinks in the stream! --O days sublime! _(They all go out at the back, except one of the captains who goes in another direction._ _(Silence. Then rolling of funeral drums below._ THE PRINCESS: No! No! I do not wish to re-open my eyes! Ah! ah! I suffer! Ho! ho! I am alive-- Rending pain pierces me! I am still alive! _(She opens her eyes and tries to walk and lower her arms._ Ah! --O God!-- O hands! O, O arms! I am fastened here by the hands! And racked, I fell into a dream, unhappy girl that I am! I see again! The troubled day brings the arduous end of life.