Nixon in China: Act I, Scene 3 - Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades and Friends

Act 1, Scene 3: "Mr. Premier, distinguished guests," (1) - John Adams (約翰·亞當斯)

Ladies and gentlemen

Comrades and friends

We have begun to celebrate the different ways

That led us to this mountain pass

This summit where we stand

Look down and think what we have undergone

Future and past lie far below half-visible

We marvel now that we survived those battles

Took those shifting paths

Blasted that rock to lay those rails

Through the cold night uncompromising lines of thought

Attempted to find common ground

Where their militias might intend

Confident that the day would come

For shadow-boxers to strike home

We saw by the first light of dawn

The outlined cities of the plain and see them still

Surrounded by the pastures of their tenantry

On land we have not taken yet

Innumerable blades of wheat salute the sun

Our children race downhill unflustered into peace

We will not sow their fields with salt

Or burn their standing crop

We built these terraces for them alone

The virtuous American and the Chinese

Make manifest their destinies in time

We toast that endless province

Whose frontier we occupy from hour to hour

Holding in perpetuity the ground our people won today

From vision to inheritance

From vision to inheritance

From vision

From vision

From vision to inheritance

All patriots were brothers once

Let us drink to the time when they shall be brothers again

Let us drink to the time when they shall be brothers again

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