Both Choruses. Surely the past must be allowed to all men; and not to him alone. What good there was in us cannot be lost.
God forgets not the virtue of those who have failed; and why should man seek to judge them? Verily all courage is immortal: the man himself cannot kill it.
Lo, what great things are done through even bad men; and this man had in him much goodness.
[A pause. Distant military music. Four young boys dressed in white, and bearing tall spears with little banners attached to the tips, enter and stand each at one corner of the couch. The arrangement suggests a medieval church tomb, of which Mrs. Arnold's kneeling figure forms a part.]
Both Choruses. Not on the shores of America—
Not on our shuddering strand,
Can Arnold's tomb be laid.
Nor in his land of illusions—
Britain's contemptuous Isle,
Can stone be added to stone.
Yet in a corner of Memory,
Hallowed by terrible pain,
Stand the stones of his grave.
There, his trophies of victory,
Piled in marshal array,
Gorgeous, perennial—
Spoils, heroic, tumultuous,
Emblems, worthy remembrance—
Marking a hero's grave.
[While this is being sung there enters a procession of youths dressed in white, each carrying a gigantic wreath, inscribed with one of Arnold's victories:—The Maine Wilderness, Quebec, Valcour's Island, St. John's, Ridgefield, Bemis Heights, Saratoga, etc. They circle the group, and pile the wreaths about the couch, then stand about in symmetry.]
Father Hudson. Enough, my children, I understand. Leave me awhile. Let there be no loud praises. Go silently.
[A dead march is played. Father Hudson resumes the plastic, immobile, and almost invisible attitude which he occupied at the opening of the play. The Choruses file silently out, one on each side of the orchestra.]
THE END
Books by John Jay Chapman
EMERSON AND OTHER ESSAYS
CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES
PRACTICAL AGITATION
FOUR PLAYS FOR CHILDREN
THE MAID'S FORGIVENESS, a play
A SAUSAGE FROM BOLOGNA, a play
LEARNING AND OTHER ESSAYS
THE TREASON AND DEATH OF BENEDICT ARNOLD, a play for a Greek theatre
Moffat, Yard & Co.,