_The Castle with the terrace leading down into the garden, as in ACT I.
It is night, as then.--The_ PRINCE OF HOMBURG, _with bandaged eyes,
is led in through the lower garden-wicket, by_ CAPTAIN STRANZ. _Officers
with the guard. In the distance one can hear the drumming of the
death-march._
[Illustration: #STATUE OF THE GREAT ELECTOR# Sculptor, Andreas Schlüter]
THE PRINCE. All art thou mine now, immortality!
Thou glistenest through the veil that blinds mine eyes
With that sun's glow that is a thousand suns.
I feel bright pinions from my shoulders start;
Through mute, ethereal spaces wings my soul;
And as the ship, borne outward by the wind,
Sees the bright harbor sink below the marge,
Thus all my being fades and is submerged.
Now I distinguish colors yet and forms,
And now--all life is fog beneath my feet.
[_The_ PRINCE _seats himself on the bench which stands about the oak
in the middle of the open space. The_ CAPTAIN _draws away from him and
looks up toward the terrace._]
How sweet the flowers fill the air with odor!
D'you smell them?
STRANZ (_returning to him_). They are gillyflowers and pinks.
THE PRINCE. How come the gillyflowers here?
STRANZ. I know not.
It must have been some girl that planted them.
Come, will you have a bachelor's button?
THE PRINCE. Thanks!
When I get home I'll have it put in water.