The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, (1 and 2), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Questenberg. What have I not been forced to hear, Octavio!
What sentiments! what fierce, uncurbed defiance!
And were this spirit universal—

Octavio. Hm!
You are now acquainted with three-fourths of the army.

Questenberg. Where must we seek then for a second host 5
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.

Octavio. Quickness of temper—irritated pride; 10
'Twas nothing more. I cannot give up Butler.
I know a spell that will soon dispossess
The evil spirit in him.

Questenberg. Friend, friend!
O! this is worse, far worse, than we had suffered
Ourselves to dream of at Vienna. There 15
We saw it only with a courtier's eyes,
Eyes dazzled by the splendour of the throne.
We had not seen the War-Chief, the Commander,
The man all-powerful in his camp. Here, here,
'Tis quite another thing. 20
Here is no Emperor more—the Duke is Emperor.
Alas, my friend! alas, my noble friend!
This walk which you have ta'en me through the camp
Strikes my hopes prostrate.

Octavio. Now you see yourself
Of what a perilous kind the office is, 25
Which you deliver to me from the Court.
The least suspicion of the General
Costs me my freedom and my life, and would
But hasten his most desperate enterprise.

[609]Questenberg. Where was our reason sleeping when we trusted 30
This madman with the sword, and placed such power
In such a hand? I tell you, he'll refuse,
Flatly refuse, to obey the Imperial orders.
Friend, he can do 't, and what he can, he will.
And then the impunity of his defiance— 35
O! what a proclamation of our weakness!

Octavio. D'ye think too, he has brought his wife and daughter
Without a purpose hither? Here in camp!
And at the very point of time, in which
We're arming for the war? That he has taken 40
These, the last pledges of his loyalty,
Away from out the Emperor's domains—
This is no doubtful token of the nearness
Of some eruption!

Questenberg. How shall we hold footing
Beneath this tempest, which collects itself 45
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 50
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, 55
Loosened, 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!

Octavio. Nay, nay, friend! let us not despair too soon, 60
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 knew not of,
Let but a single honest man speak out 65
The true name of his crime! Remember, too,
We stand not yet so wholly unprotected.
Counts Altringer and Galas have maintained
[610] Their little army faithful to its duty,
And daily it becomes more numerous. 70
Nor can he take us by surprise: you know,
I hold him all-encompassed by my listeners.
Whate'er he does, is mine, even while 'tis doing—
No step so small, but instantly I hear it;
Yea, his own mouth discloses it.

Questenberg. 'Tis quite 75
Incomprehensible, that he detects not
The foe so near!

Octavio. Beware, you do not think,
That I by lying arts, and complaisant
Hypocrisy, have skulked into his graces:
Or with the sustenance of smooth professions 80
Nourish his all-confiding friendship! No—
Compelled 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! 85

Questenberg. It is the visible ordinance of heaven.

Octavio. 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, 90
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
His heart rose on me, and his confidence 95
Shot out in sudden growth. It was the morning
Before the memorable 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, 100
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 105
That far outstripped the worth of that small service.
Since then his confidence has followed me
With the same pace that mine has fled from him.

[611]Questenberg. You lead your son into the secret?

Octavio. No!

Questenberg. What? and not warn him either what bad hands 110
His lot has placed him in?

Octavio. I must perforce
Leave him in wardship to his innocence.
His young and open soul—dissimulation
Is foreign to its habits! Ignorance
Alone can keep alive the cheerful air, 115
The unembarrassed sense and light free spirit,
That make the Duke secure.

Questenberg. My honoured friend! most highly do I deem
Of Colonel Piccolomini—yet—if——
Reflect a little——

Octavio. I must venture it. 120
Hush!—There he comes!

LINENOTES:

Scene IV

Max. Ha! there he is himself. Welcome, my father!
You are engaged, I see. I'll not disturb you.

Octavio. How, Max? Look closer at this visitor;
Attention, Max, an old friend merits—Reverence
Belongs of right to the envoy of your sovereign. 5

Max. Von Questenberg!—Welcome—if you bring with you
Aught good to our head quarters.

Questenberg (seizing his hand). Nay, draw not
Your hand away, Count Piccolomini!
Not on mine own account alone I seized it,
And nothing common will I say therewith. 10
[Taking the hands of both.
Octavio—Max Piccolomini!
O saviour names, and full of happy omen!
Ne'er will her prosperous genius turn from Austria,
While two such stars, with blessed influences
Beaming protection, shine above her hosts. 15

Max. Heh!—Noble minister! You miss your part.
[612] You came not here to act a panegyric.
You're sent, I know, to find fault and to scold us—
I must not be beforehand with my comrades.

Octavio. He comes from court, where people are not quite 20
So well contented with the duke, as here.

Max. 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. 25
Heaven never meant him for that passive thing
That can be struck and hammered 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. 30
He is possessed 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 35
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. 40
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.

Questenberg. The army? Doubtless!

Octavio (aside). Hush! suppress it, friend!
Unless some end were answered by the utterance.— 45
Of him there you'll make nothing.

Max. In their distress
They call a spirit up, and when he comes,
Straight their flesh creeps and quivers, and they dread him
More than the ills for which they called him up.
The uncommon, the sublime, must seem and be 50
Like things of every day.—But in the field,
Aye, there the Present Being makes itself felt.
The personal must command, the actual eye
[613] Examine. If to be the chieftain asks
All that is great in nature, let it be 55
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. 60

Octavio. My son! of those old narrow ordinances
Let us not hold too lightly. They are weights
Of priceless value, which oppressed mankind
Tied to the volatile will of their oppressors.
For always formidable was the league 65
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, 70
Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches.
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, 75
Honouring the holy bounds of property!
And thus secure, though late, leads to its end.

Questenberg. O hear your father, noble youth! hear him,
Who is at once the hero and the man.

Octavio. My son, the nursling of the camp spoke in thee! 80
A war of fifteen years
Hath been thy education and thy school.
Peace hast thou never witnessed! There exists
A higher than the warrior's excellence.
In war itself war is no ultimate purpose. 85
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! 90
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
[614] Are crowded with new freights, trade stirs and hurries! 95
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. 100

Max. O let the Emperor make peace, my father!
Most gladly would I give the blood-stained laurel
For the first violet [614:1] of the leafless spring,
Plucked in those quiet fields where I have journeyed!

Octavio. What ails thee? What so moves thee all at once? 105

Max. Peace have I ne'er beheld? I have beheld it.
From thence am I come hither: O! that sight,
It glimmers still before me, like some landscape
Left in the distance,—some delicious landscape!
My road conducted me through countries where 110
The war has not yet reached. Life, life, my father—
My venerable father, life has charms
Which we have ne'er experienced. We have been
But voyaging along its barren coasts,
Like some poor ever-roaming horde of pirates, 115
That, crowded in the rank and narrow ship,
House on the wild sea with wild usages,
Nor know aught of the main land, but the bays
Where safeliest they may venture a thieves' landing.
Whate'er in the inland dales the land conceals 120
Of fair and exquisite, O! nothing, nothing,
Do we behold of that in our rude voyage.

Octavio. And so your journey has revealed this to you?

Max. 'Twas the first leisure of my life. O tell me,
What is the meed and purpose of the toil, 125
The painful toil, which robbed me of my youth,
Left me a heart unsoul'd and solitary,
A spirit uninformed, unornamented.
For the camp's stir and crowd and ceaseless larum,
The neighing war-horse, the air-shattering trumpet, 130
[615] The unvaried, still-returning hour of duty,
Word of command, and exercise of arms—
There's nothing here, there's nothing in all this
To satisfy the heart, the gasping heart!
Mere bustling nothingness, where the soul is not— 135
This cannot be the sole felicity,
These cannot be man's best and only pleasures.

Octavio. Much hast thou learnt, my son, in this short journey.

Max. O! day thrice lovely! when at length the soldier
Returns home into life; when he becomes 140
A fellow-man among his fellow-men.
The colours are unfurled, the cavalcade
Marshals, and now the buzz is hushed, and hark!
Now the soft peace-march beats, home, brothers, home!
The caps and helmets are all garlanded 145
With green boughs, the last plundering of the fields.
The city gates fly open of themselves,
They need no longer the petard to tear them.
The ramparts are all filled with men and women,
With peaceful men and women, that send onwards 150
Kisses and welcomings upon the air,
Which they make breezy with affectionate gestures.
From all the towers rings out the merry peal,
The joyous vespers of a bloody day.
O happy man, O fortunate! for whom 155
The well-known door, the faithful arms are open,
The faithful tender arms with mute embracing.

Questenberg. O! that you should speak
Of such a distant, distant time, and not
Of the to-morrow, not of this to-day. 160

Max. Where lies the fault but on you in Vienna?
I will deal openly with you, Questenberg.
Just now, as first I saw you standing here,
(I'll own it to you freely) indignation
Crowded and pressed my inmost soul together. 165
'Tis ye that hinder peace, ye!—and the warrior,
It is the warrior that must force it from you.
Ye fret the General's life out, blacken him,
Hold him up as a rebel, and Heaven knows
What else still worse, because he spares the Saxons, 170
[616] And tries to awaken confidence in the enemy;
Which yet 's the only way to peace: for if
War intermit not during war, how then
And whence can peace come?—Your own plagues fall on you!
Even as I love what's virtuous, hate I you. 175
And here make I this vow, here pledge myself;
My blood shall spurt out for this Wallenstein,
And my heart drain off, drop by drop, ere ye
Shall revel and dance jubilee o'er his ruin. [Exit.

FOOTNOTES:

LINENOTES:

Scene V

Questenberg. Alas, alas! and stands it so?
What, friend! and do we let him go away
In this delusion—let him go away?
Not call him back immediately, not open
His eyes upon the spot?

Octavio. He has now opened mine, 5
And I see more than pleases me.

Questenberg. What is it?

Octavio. Curse on this journey!

Questenberg. But why so? What is it?

Octavio. Come, come along, friend! I must follow up
The ominous track immediately. Mine eyes
Are opened now, and I must use them. Come! 10
[Draws Questenberg on with him.

Questenberg. What now? Where go you then?

Octavio. To her herself.

Questenberg. To——

Octavio. To the Duke. Come, let us go—'Tis done, 'tis done,
I see the net that is thrown over him.
O! he returns not to me as he went.

Questenberg. Nay, but explain yourself.

Octavio. And that I should not 15
Foresee it, not prevent this journey! Wherefore
Did I keep it from him?—You were in the right.
I should have warned him! Now it is too late.

[617]Questenberg. But what's too late? Bethink yourself, my friend,
That you are talking absolute riddles to me. 20

Octavio. Come!—to the Duke's. 'Tis close upon the hour
Which he appointed you for audience. Come!
A curse, a threefold curse, upon this journey! [He leads Questenberg off.

LINENOTES:

Scene VI

Changes to a spacious chamber in the house of the Duke of Friedland.—Servants employed in putting the tables and chairs in order. During this enters Seni, like an old Italian doctor, in black, and clothed somewhat fantastically. He carries a white staff, with which he marks out the quarters of the heaven.

Scene III

LINENOTES:

Scene IV

FOOTNOTES:

LINENOTES:

Scene V

LINENOTES:

Scene VI