CHORUS.
Hail! to the lord of our land!
Philip of Mirlemont, hail!
Yea, whosoever it be
Love shall ere call to thy side.
GUNTRAN reappears, and following him come some of the ladies of PHILIP's household escorting LAINE.
GUNTRAN.
Behold the maid whose simple faith hath proved
Both shield and spur to that true lord she loved!
CHORUS. What is this? Nay, look again!
It is! and yet it cannot be!
JOAN. And I who sought her all in vain -
My little Laine comes back to me!
CHORUS. Lord Philip weds the cripple Laine?
Yes, look again; in sooth 'tis she!
LAINE advances and embraces her mother and father and JACQUELINE.
LAINE.
Oh, father! mother!
Father hath come home!
SIMON.Yea, this truant heart never more shall roam.
LAINE. I dreamt not this!
And thou, dear Jacqueline!
JACQUELINE.Dost know me still! the rabble's tattered queen?
PHILIP (to LAINE).
Where hast thou fled? Come hither! take thy place,
That all may see the glory of thy face.
DEVIL. (aside)
I'll get me hence. 'Tis but a sorry jest
When love, though blind, hath wit to choose the best.
PHILIP.
In truth I am not blind. At last, at last,
I see thee truly, know thee as thou art.
Though heaven hath set a veil upon these eyes,
It doth but blacken out the ruined past;
And love's one star that lights my sunless skies
Shows clear the way that leads me to thy heart.
If the cloak of winter be naught but the glittering garment of spring;
If the whispering silence of night but tells of the dawn that is there;
Then the veil on these eyes is no more than a shadow that falls from Love's wing,
'Tis love that proclaims thee to-day the fairest of all that are fair -
proclaims thee to-day the fairest of all that are fair.
ALL.
If the cloak of winter be naught but the glittering garmet of spring!
If the whispering silence of night but tells of the dawn that is there;
Then the veil on these eyes is no more than a shadow that falls
from Love's wing -
'Tis Love that proclaims thee today the fairest of all that are fair
proclaims thee today the fairest of all that are fair.
'Tis Love that proclaims thee the fairest of all,
'Tis Love that proclaims thee the fairest of all,
The fairest, fairest of all that are fair
that are fair, that are fair, that are fair, that are fair.
PHILIP and LAINE sit side by side; SIMON and JOAN kneel before them, stretching out their hands in thanksgiving. The DEVIL, hiding his face in his cowl, steals away as the curtain falls finally.
THE END.
MIDI File
