Act 3 — Scene III.

Wanda, Leszek, People.

Wanda ascends the hill, the Chorus retires to the left, a vast crowd assembles on the right, and stands opposite the tumulus of Krakus.

Chorus of the People.

Twixt queen and people how firm the tie

Of mutual love and loyalty!

Seek ye that magic the wide earth round,

And own that in Poland ’tis strongest found.

Yon mound, half hidden in shadowy haze,

Stands as a herald of better days,

As a word to nations as yet unborn,

An episode bright as the star of morn,

Gilding our history’s chequer’d page,

With beams that shall glitter from age to age.

Ah, better than sounding names and fair

47Is the title the kings of Poland bear—

“Loved and loving,” their dearest aim

The hearts of the people to win and claim.

A Polish word is full of meaning,

For the Polish heart is rich in feeling;

Esteem and affection dictate our choice,

When a king is made by the nation’s voice;

And thus, elected by force of merit,

Is safer than those who thrones inherit.

If truth-loving, pious, and brave he prove,

He will ever be served with devotion and love,

And his children’s children we gladly choose,

When at Heaven’s decree the father we lose;

When national the monarch the people is royal,

To king and to fatherland equally loyal,

Since the two are united and blended in one,

And thus our palladium unconquer’d become.

Such! such! was our Krakus, and therefore we swear,

That Wanda, and Wanda alone is his heir!

High rises the tomb where his ashes repose,

Which handfuls of earth all unnumbered compose,

48Each brought by a subject and friend as a token

Of fealty and love that can never be broken.

By its green covering sods, lo! we swear it again,

No monarch save Wanda o’er Poland shall reign!

[A thunderstorm approaches; Wanda appears on the summit of the tomb, kneeling, and with hands uplifted in prayer. Leszek steps forward from the midst of the People.

Leszek.

Around the dreary tomb the night wind moans,—

Moans like the voice of some despairing ghost,

Bearing from Cracow most mysterious echoes;

On thunder wheels the frowning storm rolls on,

Towards hoary Wawel, yet from yonder height

Shines our fair Wanda, like a ’wilder’d star.

What doth the dauntless maiden there alone?

On such a night fell spectres stalk abroad;

Methinks she communes with her father’s shade,

Nor trembles; wherefore no? To angel souls

The spirit world is more a home than ours,

49Its forms of light to all their thoughts akin,

And Wanda is an angel!

[Wanda rises, descends towards the Vistula, and disappears from the eyes of the spectators, hidden by the declivity. The Bard alone appears before the People; at the same time the sun rises, and Wanda’s Maidens appear for a moment on the tumulus, and then run down the hill to the Vistula. Meanwhile the People’s Chorus is again heard.

People’s Chorus.

As the sunbeams scatter the early dew,

See Wanda’s train, to her orders true!

Yet they seek in vain where she bade them find her;

Each maiden glances before, behind her.

Now the banks of the Vistula rivet their eyes,

And the breeze bears toward us impassion’d cries;

With nameless horror our spirits quail,

What mean those gestures, that frantic wail?

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