The New England Tragedies

SCENE V. -- The Wilderness. Enter EDITH.

EDITH. / How beautiful are these autumnal woods! / The wilderness doth blossom like the rose, / And change into a garden of the Lord! / How silent everywhere! Alone and lost / Here in the forest, there comes over me / An inward awfulness. I recall the words / Of the Apostle Paul: "In journeyings often, / Often in perils in the wilderness, / In weariness, in painfulness, in watchings, / In hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness; " / And I forget my weariness and pain, / My watchings, and my hunger and my thirst. / The Lord hath said that He will seek his flock / In cloudy and dark days, and they shall dwell / Securely in the wilderness, and sleep / Safe in the woods! Whichever way I turn, / I come back with my face towards the town. / Dimly I see it, and the sea beyond it. / O cruel town! I know what waits me there, / And yet I must go back; for ever louder / I hear the inward calling of the Spirit, / And must obey the voice. O woods that wear / Your golden crown of martyrdom, blood-stained, / From you I learn a lesson of submission, / And am obedient even unto death, / If God so wills it. [Exit.