SCENE vi PART SECOND \%*.
^(x
Re-enter the room hurriedly and cross to the windows several ladies as before, some in tears.
FIRST LADY
The kingdom late of Prussia, can it be That thus it disappears ?—a patriot-cry, A battle, bravery, ruin ; and no more ?
SECOND LADY Thank God the Queen's gone!
THIRD LADY
To what sanctuary ?
From earthquake shocks there is no sheltering cell! —Is this what men call conquest ? Must it close As historied conquests do, or be annulled By modern reason and the urbaner sense ?— Such issue none would venture to predict, Yet, folly 'twere to nourish foreshaped fears And suffer in conjecture and in deed.— If verily our country be dislimbed, Then at the mercy of his domination The face of earth will lie, and vassal kings Stand waiting on himself the Overking, Who ruling them rules all; till desperateness Sting and excite a bonded last resistance, An3 work its own release.
SECOND LADY
He comes even now
From sacrilege. ^1 learn that, since the fight, In marching here by Potsdam yesterday, Sans-Souci Palace drew his curious feet, Where even great Frederick's tomb was bared to him.
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