An Aged Minstrel

[Sings from a distance.]

Taut is the air and tied the trees, The leaves lie as on a hand; God’s unthinkable imagination Invents new tortures for nature.

And when the air is soft and the leaves Feel free and push and tremble, Will they not remember and say How wonderful to have lived?

[The OLD HEBREW is agitated and murmurs.]

Messiah, Messiah.... That voice.... O, he has beaten my sight out.... I see Like a rain about a devouring fire....

[The Minstrel sings.]

Ye who best God awhile, O hear: your wealth Is but His cunning to see to make death more hard, Your iron sinews take more pain in breaking; And he has made the market for your beauty Too poor to buy although you die to sell.