I'll see just now if I can pitch
My music to a higher note:
Though with an unaccustom'd throat,
A sounding-board's so seldom here.
Farewell, farewell! I mean to preach
Of human nature's sinful prime,
God's image nigh obliterated.—
But now I'm thinking it is time
The inner mortal should be baited. [Goes.
Brand
[Stands for a moment as if petrified in thought.]
All I have offer'd for my call, God's as I vainly held it,—all; And now one trumpet-blast reveal'd Before what idols I had kneel'd. Not yet! not yet! I'm not their slave! Yon churchyard has had blood to sup, Light, life I've laid in yonder grave;— My soul shall not be yielded up! O horrible to stand alone,— Amid a glimmering world of dead; Horrible to receive a stone, Howe'er I hunger after bread.— How true, how deadly true, his strain,— But yet how vacant and how vain. Dim broods God's dove of piercing eyes; Alas, to me she never flies.— O, had I but <g>one</g> faithful breast— To give me strength, to give me rest.
Einar, pale, emaciated, dressed in black, comes along the road and stops on perceiving Brand.
Brand
[Cries out.]
You, Einar?
