Plunged down upon and seized, this weighty prize! -- And you?-You hold out firmly?
ILLO (hesitating).
How so? Do you know-
ISOLANI (interrupting him).
Max. Piccolomini here?-0 bring me to him.
I see him yet ('t is now ten years ago,
We were engaged with Mansfeld hard by Dessau),
I see the youth, in my mind's eye I see him,
Leap his black war-horse from the bridge adown,
And t'ward his father, then in extreme peril,
Beat up against the strong tide of the Elbe.
The down was scarce upon his chin! I hear
He has made good the promise of his youth,
And the full hero now is finislı'd in him.
You'll see him yet ere evening. He conducts The Duchess Friedland hither, and the Princess From Carnthen. We expect them here at noon.
A town about 12 German miles N. E. of Ulm. 2 The Dukes in Germany being always reigning powers, their sons and daughters are entitled Princes and Princesses.
A pleasant duty-Major General,
What, you mean, of his regiment?
I hear, too, that to make the gift still sweeter,
The Duke has given him the very same
In which he first saw service, and since then,
Work'd himself, step by step, through each preferment,
From the ranks upwards. And verily, it gives
A precedent of hope, a spur of action
To the whole corps, if once in their remembrance
An old deserving soldier makes his way.
I am perplex'd and doubtful, whether or no
I dare accept this your congratulation.
The Emperor has not yet confirm'd the appointment.
Seize it, friend! Seize it! The hand which in that post Placed you, is strong enough to keep you there, Spite of the Emperor and his Ministers?
Ay, if we would but so consider it!-
If we would all of us consider it so!
The Emperor gives us nothing; from the Duke
Comes all-whate'er we hope, whate'er we have.
My noble brother! did I tell you how
The Duke will satisfy my creditors?
Will be himself my banker for the future,
Make me once more a creditable man!-
And this is now the third time, think of that!
This kingly-minded man has rescued me
From absolute ruin, and restored my honour.
O that his power but kept pace with his wishes!
Why, friend! he'd give the whole world to his soldiers.
But at Vienna, brother!-here's the grievance!-
What politic schemes do they not lay to shorten
Well, well, then-to compel him, if you chuse.
I can remember me right well, Count Tilly
Had suffer'd total rout upon the Lech.
Bavaria lay all open to the enemy,
Whom there was nothing to delay from pressing
BUTLER (shocked and confused). Know you aught then? You alarm me. ISOLANI (at the same time with BUTLER, and in a hurrying Onwards into the very heart of Austria.
At that time you and Werdenberg appear'd
Before our General, storming him with prayers,
And menacing the Emperor's displeasure,
Unless he took compassion on this wretchedness.
ISOLANI (steps up to them).
Yes, yes, 'tis comprehensible enough,
Wherefore with your commission of to-day
You were not all too willing to remember
Your former one.
QUESTENBERG.
Why not, Count Isolan?
No contradiction sure exists between them.
It was the urgent business of that time
To snatch Bavaria from her enemy's hand;
And my commission of to-day instructs me
To free her from her good friends and protectors.
A worthy office! After with our blood
We have wrested this Bohemia from the Saxon,
To be swept out of it is all our thanks,
The sole reward of all our hard-won victories.
Unless that wretched land be doomed to suffer
Only a change of evils, it must be
Freed from the scourge alike of friend and foe.
What? 'T was a favourable year; the boors Can answer fresh demands already.
If you discourse of herds and meadow-grounds
The war maintains the war. Are the boors ruin'd, The Emperor gains so many more new soldiers.
And is the poorer by even so many subjects.
[Universal silence. Poh! We are all his subjects.
The long-tried friend and patron of all soldiers,
We horour in this noble visitor.
ILLO (moving towards QUESTENBERG).
Thank Heaven! that means have been found out to hide His cares and feelings all ranks share alike,
Some little from the fingers of the Croats.
There! The Stawata and the Martinitz,
On whom the Emperor heaps his gifts and graces,
To the heart-burning of all good Bohemians-
Those minions of court favour, those court harpies,
Who fatten on the wrecks of citizens
Driven from their house and home-who reap no
harvests
Save in the general calamity
Who now, with kingly pomp, insult and mock
The desolation of their country-these,
Let these, and such as these, support the war,
The fatal war, which they alone enkindled!
And those state-parasites, who have their feet
So constantly beneath the Emperor's table,
Who cannot let a benefice fall, but they
Snap at it with dog's hunger-they, forsooth,
Nor will he offer one up to another.
This is no more than a remembrancing
That you are now in camp, and among warriors.
The soldier's boldness constitutes his freedom.
Would pare the soldier's bread, and cross his reckon- Could he act daringly, unless he dared
My life long will it anger me to think,
How when I went to court seven years ago,
To see about new horses for our regiment,
How from one antechamber to another
They dragg'd me on, and left me by the hour
To kick my heels among a crowd of simpering
Feast-fatten'd slaves, as if I had come thither
A mendicant suitor for the crumbs of favour
That fall beneath their tables. And, at last,
Whom should they send me but a Capuchin!
Straight I began to muster up my sins
For absolution-but no such luck for me!
This was the man, this capuchin, with whom
I was to treat concerning the army horses:
And I was forced at last to quit the field,
The business unaccomplish'd. Afterwards
The Duke procured me in three days, what I
Could not obtain in thirty at Vienna.
Talk even so? One runs into the other.
You 'Il not forget, that yet ere noon we meet
Yes, yes! your travelling bills soon found their way to us: The noble Envoy at the General's palace.
Too well I know we have still accounts to settle.
[Exeunt all but QUESTENBERG and OCTAVIO.
QUESTENBERG and OCTAVIO.
QUESTENBERG (with signs of aversion and astonishment).
What have I not been forced to hear, Octavio!
What sentiments! what fierce, uncurb'd defiance!
And were this spirit universal
You are now acquainted with three-fourths of the army.
Where must we seek then for a second host
To have the custody of this? That Illo
Thinks worse, I fear me, than he speaks. And then
This Butler too-he cannot even conceal
The passionate workings of his ill intentions.
Quickness of temper-irritated pride;
'T was nothing more. I cannot give up Butler.
I know a spell that will soon dispossess The evil spirit in him.
Their little army faithful to its duty, And daily it becomes more numerous.
QUESTENBERG (walking up and down in evident disquiet). Nor can he take us by surprise: you know
QUESTENBERG.
How shall we hold footing
Beneath this tempest, which collects itself
And threats us from all quarters? The enemy
Of the empire on our borders, now already
The master of the Danube, and still farther,
And farther still, extending every hour!
In our interior the alarum-bells
Of insurrection-peasantry in arms-
All orders discontented-and the army,
Just in the moment of our expectation
Of aidance from it-lo! this very army
Seduced, run wild, lost to all discipline,
Loosen'd, and rent asunder from the state
And from their sovereign, the blind instrument
Of the most daring of mankind, a weapon
Of fearful power, which at his will he wields!
Nay, nay, friend! let us not despair too soon.
Men's words are ever bolder than their deeds:
And many a resolute, who now appears
Made up to all extremes, will, on a sudden
Find in his breast a heart he wot not of,
Let but a single honest man speak out
The true name of his crime! Remember too,
We stand not yet so wholly unprotected.
Counts Altringer and Galas have maintain'd
I hold him all encompass'd by my listeners.
Whate'er he does, is mine, even while 't is doing-
No step so small, but instantly I hear it;
Yea, his own mouth discloses it.
Incomprehensible, that he detects not The foe so near!
Beware, you do not think,
That I by lying arts, and complaişant
Hypocrisy, have skulked into his graces:
Or with the substance of smooth professions
Nourish his all-confiding friendship! No-
Compell'd alike by prudence, and that duty
Which we all owe our country, and our sovereign,
To hide my genuine feelings from him, yet
Ne'er have I duped him with base counterfeits!
It is the visible ordinance of Heaven.
I know not what it is that so attracts
And links him both to me and to my son.
Comrades and friends we always were-long habit,
Adventurous deeds performed in company.
And all those many and various incidents
Which store a soldier's memory with affections,
Had bound us long and early to each other-
Yet I can name the day, when all at once
Ilis heart rose on me, and his confidence
Shot out in sudden growth. It was the morning
Before the meinorable fight at Lützner.
Urged by an ugly dream. I sought him out,
To press him to accept another charger.
At distance from the tents, beneath a tree,
I found him in a sleep. When I had waked him,
And had related all my bodings to him,
Long time he stared upon me, like a man
Astounded; thereon fell upon my neck,
And manifested to me an emotion
That far outstripp'd the worth of that small service.
Since then his confidence has follow'd me
With the same pace that mine has fled from him.
MAX. PICCOLOMINI, OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI, QUESTENBERG.
Ha! there he is himself. Welcome, my father!
More than the ills for which they call'd him up.
The uncommon, the sublime, must seem and be
[He embraces his father. As he turns round, Like things of every day. But in the field,
he observes QUESTENBERG, and draws back with a cold and reserved air.
You are engaged, I see. I'll not disturb you.
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What now have they contrived to find out in him?
That he alone determines for himself
What he himself alone doth understand!
Well, therein he does right, and will persist in 't.
Ileaven never meant him for that passive thing
That can be struck and hammer'd out to suit
Another's taste and fancy. He'll not dance
To every tune of every minister :
It goes against his nature-he can't do it.
He is possess'd by a commanding spirit,
And his too is the station of command.
And well for us it is so! There exist
Few fit to rule themselves, but few that use
Their intellects intelligently. Then
Well for the whole, if there be found a man,
Who makes himself what nature destined him,
The pause, the central point to thousand thousands-
Stands fixed and stately, like a firm-built column,
Where all may press with joy and confidence.
Now such a man is Wallenstein; and if
Another better suits the court-no other
But such a one as he can serve the army.
Aye, there the Present Being makes itself felt.
The personal must command, the actual eye
Examine. If to be the chieftain asks,
All that is great in nature, let it be
Likewise his privilege to move and act
In all the correspondencies of greatness.
The oracle within him, that which lives,
He must invoke and question-not dead books,
Not ordinances, not mould-rotted papers.
My son! of those old narrow ordinances
Let us not hold too lightly. They are weights
Of priceless value, which oppress'd mankind
Tied to the volatile will of their oppressors.
For always formidable was the league
And partnership of free power with free will.
The way of ancient ordinance, though it winds,
Is yet no devious way. Straight forward goes
The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path
Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies and rapid,
Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it
My son! the road, the human being travels,
That, on which BLESSING comes and goes, doth follow
The river's course, the valley's playful windings,
Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines,
Honouring the holy bounds of property!
And thus secure, though late, leads to its end.
O hear your father, noble youth! hear him, Who is at once the hero and the man.
My son, the nursling of the camp spoke in thee!
A war of fifteen years
Hath been thy education and thy school.
Peace hast thou never witness'd! There exists
An higher than the warrior's excellence.
In war itself war is no ultimate purpose.
The vast and sudden deeds of violence,
Adventures wild, and wonders of the moment,
These are not they, my son, that generate
The Calm, the Blissful, and the enduring Mighty!
Lo there! the soldier, rapid architect!
Builds his light town of canvas, and at once
The whole scene moves and bustles momently,
With arms, and neighing steeds, and mirth and quarrel
The motley market fills; the roads, the streams
Are crowded with new freiglits, trade stirs and hurries!
But on some morrow morn, all suddenly,
The tents drop down, the horde renews its march.
Dreary, and solitary as a church-yard
The meadow and down-trodden seed-plot lie,
And the year's harvest is gone utterly.
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