SALOMITH, THE CHOIR.

SALOMITH.
What fears my sisters, O what mortal broils!
All powerful God, are these the sacrifices,
The first-fruits and the perfumes we
This day should offer at Thy altars?

One of the daughters of the Choir.
What spectacle unto our timid eyes!
Who could have feared we ever should behold
The murderous sword, the homicidal lance
Flashing within the house of peace?

Another.
Whence comes it that Jerusalem,
Full of indifference to her God,
Is silent in her present danger?
Whence comes it, sisters, that for our protection
Brave Abner, at the least, speaks not aloud?


SALOMITH.
Ah! in a court, in which prevails
No other law than force and violence;
In which its honours and employments are
The price of blind and base obedience,
Who will desire, my sister, to lift up
His voice for sorrowing innocence?

Another.
For whom's that sacred diadem prepared
In this confusion—peril violent?


SALOMITH.
The Lord has deigned to speak;
But who can make us understand
What to his prophet He has now revealed?
Arms He Himself in our defence?
Or does He arm to overwhelm us?

All the choir sing,
O promise! threatening! mysterious gloom!
What evil and what good by turns foretold!
How can we reconcile
So much of wrath and love?

One voice alone.
Sion will be no more; a cruel flame
Will burn up all her excellence.

Another voice.
O God, shield Sion; Thy eternal word
She holds for her foundations.

The first
How all her splendour fades before my eyes.

The second.
I see on every side her glory radiant

The first.
Sion is sunk to a profound abyss.

The second.
Sion, whose brow is in the heavens.

The first
What sorrowful abasement!

The second.
What immortal glory!

The first
What wailings!

The second.
What songs of victory!

A third.
Let us cease from troubling; our God one day
Will reconcile this mystery sublime!

All three.
Let us revere His anger; trust His love.

Another.
God! of a heart that loveth Thee
Who can disturb the peace?
Itself forgetting ever,
It seeks, in all, Thy will supreme.
On earth—in heaven even can there bloom
Another blessing than the tranquil peace
Of a heart that loveth Thee?


END OF THE THIRD ACT.