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_ ACT II - SCENE II
[A height crowned with trees. A wide and smiling landscape
occupies the background, which is traversed by a beautiful
river, and enlivened by the budding green of spring. At
various points the towers of several towns are visible.
Drums and martial music without. Enter ODOWALSKY, and other
officers, and immediately afterwards DEMETRIUS.]
ODOWALSKY.
Go, lead the army downward by the wood,
Whilst we look round us here upon the height.
[Exeunt some of the officers.]
[Enter DEMETRIUS.]
DEMETRIUS (starting back).
Ha! what a prospect!
ODOWALSKY.
Sire, thou see'st thy kingdom
Spread out before thee. That is Russian land.
RAZIN.
Why, e'en this pillar here bears Moscow's arms;
Here terminates the empire of the Poles.
DEMETRIUS.
Is that the Dnieper, rolls its quiet stream
Along these meadows?
ODOWALSKY.
That, sire, is the Desna;
See, yonder rise the towers of Tschernizow!
RAZIN.
Yon gleam you see upon the far horizon
Is from the roofs of Sewerisch Novogrod.
DEMETRIUS.
What a rich prospect! What fair meadow lands!
ODOWALSKY.
The spring has decked them with her trim array;
A teeming harvest clothes the fruitful soil.
DEMETRIUS.
The view is lost in limitless expanse.
RAZIN.
Yet is this but a small beginning, sire,
Of Russia's mighty empire. For it spreads
Towards the east to confines unexplored,
And on the north has ne'er a boundary,
Save the productive energy of earth.
Behold, our Czar is quite absorbed in thought.
DEMETRIUS.
On these fair meads dwell peace, unbroken peace,
And with war's terrible array I come
To scatter havoc, like a listed foe!
ODOWALSKY.
Hereafter 'twill be time to think of that.
DEMETRIUS.
Thou feelest as a Pole, I am Moscow's son.
It is the land to which I owe my life;
Forgive me, thou dear soil, land of my home,
Thou sacred boundary-pillar, which I clasp,
Whereon my sire his broad-spread eagle graved,
That I, thy son, with foreign foemen's arms,
Invade the tranquil temple of thy peace.
'Tis to reclaim my heritage I come,
And the proud name that has been stolen from me.
Here the Varegers, my forefathers, ruled,
In lengthened line, for thirty generations;
I am the last of all their lineage, snatched
From murder by God's special providence. _
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