_] Ah!
PATOU
She is caught!
THE PHEASANT-HEN
[_Struggling in the net._] He is lost!
PATOU
[_Wildly._] She is--He is--
[_All the_ RABBITS _have thrust out their heads to see._]
THE PHEASANT-HEN
[_Crying in an ardent prayer._] Daybreak protect him!
THE OWLS
[_Rocking themselves gleefully among the branches._] The gun-barrel
shines, shines--
THE PHEASANT-HEN
Dawn, touch the cartridge with your dewy wing! Trip the foot of the
hunter in a tangle of grass! He is your Cock! He drove off the darkness
and the shadow of the Hawk! And he is going to die. Nightingale, you,
say something! Speak!
THE NIGHTINGALE
[_In a supplicating sob._] He fought for a friend of mine, the Rose!
THE PHEASANT-HEN
Let him live! And I will dwell in the farmyard beside the ploughshare
and the hoe! And renouncing for his sake all that in my pride I made a
burden and torment to him, I will own, O Sun, that when you made his
shadow you marked out my place in the world!
[_Daylight grows. On all sides, rustles and murmurs._]
THE WOODPECKER
[_Singing._] The air is blue!
A CROW
[_Cawing as he flies past._] Daylight grows!
THE PHEASANT-HEN
The forest is astir--
ALL THE BIRDS
[_Waking among the trees._] Good-morning! Good-morning! Good-morning!
Good-morning! Good-morning!
THE PHEASANT-HEN
Everyone sings!
A JAY
[_Darting past like a streak of blue lightning._] Ha, ha!
THE WOODPECKER
The Jay shakes with homeric laughter.
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