"Softly the Indian night sunk o'er the plain, Fragrant with blooms and jewelled thick with stars, And cool with mountain airs sighing adown From snow-flats on Himâla high outspread. The moon above the eastern peaks Silvered the roof-tops of the pleasure-house, And all the sleeping land." The next scene opens with a soprano solo ("Within the Bower of inmost Splendor"), in which Yasôdhara relates her dream of the voice crying "The Time is nigh," to Siddârtha, and closes with a tender duet for soprano and tenor. The next number is a brief chorus ("Then in her Tears she slept"), followed by the tenor solo, "I will depart," in which Siddârtha proclaims his resolve "to seek deliverance and the unknown light," and leading to a richly-colored and majestic chorus: "There came a wind which lulled each sense aswoon Of captains and of soldiers: The gates of triple brass rolled back all silently On their grim hinges; Then, lightly treading, where those sleepers lay, Into the night Siddârtha passed, While o'er the land a tremor spread, As if earth's soul beneath stirred with an unknown hope, And rich celestial music thrilled the air From hosts on hosts of shining ones." A tenor solo describes the six long years of wandering, followed by a characteristic chorus of voices of earth and air bidding him pass to the tree under whose leaves it was foretold that truth should come to him for the saving of the world. A short bass recitative leads to a vigorous descriptive chorus relating the temptations of Siddârtha, in which the orchestra is used with masterly effect. A brief soprano solo, the apparition of Yasôdhara among the wanton shapes floating about the tree, imploring him to return, and the tenor response, bidding the shadow depart, intervene; and then the chorus resumes with increased vigor, reaching a furious climax as the legions of hell tempt him, but dying away in the close to phrases of tender beauty:-- "Radiant, rejoicing, strong, Buddha arose, And far and near there spread an unknown peace. As that divinest daybreak lightened earth, The world was glad."