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

Octavio. Ay, ay! more still! Still more new visitors!
Acknowledge, friend! that never was a camp,
Which held at once so many heads of heroes.
Welcome, Count Isolani!

Isolani. My noble brother,
Even now am I arrived; it had been else my duty— 5

Octavio. And Colonel Butler—trust me, I rejoice
Thus to renew acquaintance with a man
Whose worth and services I know and honour.
See, see, my friend!
[604] There might we place at once before our eyes 10
The sum of war's whole trade and mystery— [To Questenberg, presenting Butler and Isolani at the same time to him.
These two the total sum—Strength and Dispatch.

Questenberg (to Octavio). And lo! betwixt them both experienced Prudence!

Octavio (presenting Questenberg to Butler and Isolani). The Chamberlain and War-commissioner Questenberg,
The bearer of the Emperor's behests, 15
The long-tried friend and patron of all soldiers,
We honour in this noble visitor.

Illo. 'Tis not the first time, noble Minister,
You have shewn our camp this honour.

Questenberg. Once before,
I stood before these colours. 20

Illo. Perchance too you remember where that was.
It was at Znäim [604:1] in Moravia, where
You did present yourself upon the part
Of the Emperor, to supplicate our Duke
That he would straight assume the chief command. 25

Questenberg. To supplicate? Nay, noble General!
So far extended neither my commission
(At least to my own knowledge) nor my zeal.

Illo. Well, well, then—to compel him, if you choose.
I can remember me right well, Count Tilly 30
Had suffered total rout upon the Lech.
Bavaria lay all open to the enemy,
Whom there was nothing to delay from pressing
Onwards into the very heart of Austria.
At that time you and Werdenberg appeared 35
Before our General, storming him with prayers,
And menacing the Emperor's displeasure,
Unless he took compassion on this wretchedness.

Isolani. Yes, yes, 'tis comprehensible enough,
Wherefore with your commission of to-day 40
[605] 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 45
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.

Illo. A worthy office! After with our blood
We have wrested this Bohemia from the Saxon, 50
To be swept out of it is all our thanks,
The sole reward of all our hard-won victories.

Questenberg. 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. 55

Illo. What? 'Twas a favourable year; the Boors
Can answer fresh demands already.

Questenberg. Nay,
If you discourse of herds and meadow-grounds—

Isolani. The war maintains the war. Are the Boors ruined,
The Emperor gains so many more new soldiers. 60

Questenberg. And is the poorer by even so many subjects.

Isolani. Poh! We are all his subjects.

Questenberg. Yet with a difference, General! The one fill
With profitable industry the purse,
The others are well skilled to empty it. 65
The sword has made the Emperor poor; the plough
Must reinvigorate his resources.

Isolani. Sure!
Times are not yet so bad. Methinks I see [Examining with his eye the dress and ornaments of Questenberg.
Good store of gold that still remains uncoined.

Questenberg. Thank Heaven! that means have been found out to hide 70
Some little from the fingers of the Croats.

Illo. 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, 75
Who fatten on the wrecks of citizens
Driven from their house and home—who reap no harvests
[606] Save in the general calamity—
Who now, with kingly pomp, insult and mock
The desolation of their country—these, 80
Let these, and such as these, support the war,
The fatal war, which they alone enkindled!

Butler. And those state-parasites, who have their feet
So constantly beneath the Emperor's table,
Who cannot let a benefice fall, but they 85
Snap at it with dog's hunger—they, forsooth,
Would pare the soldier's bread, and cross his reckoning!

Isolani. 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, 90
How from one antechamber to another
They dragged me on, and left me by the hour
To kick my heels among a crowd of simpering
Feast-fattened slaves, as if I had come thither
A mendicant suitor for the crumbs of favour 95
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 100
I was to treat concerning the army horses:
And I was forced at last to quit the field,
The business unaccomplished. Afterwards
The Duke procured me in three days, what I
Could not obtain in thirty at Vienna. 105

Questenberg. Yes, yes! your travelling bills soon found their way to us:
Too well I know we have still accounts to settle.

Illo. War is a violent trade; one cannot always
Finish one's work by soft means; every trifle
Must not be blackened into sacrilege. 110
If we should wait till you, in solemn council,
With due deliberation had selected
The smallest out of four-and-twenty evils,
I'faith, we should wait long.—
'Dash! and through with it!'—That's the better watch-word. 115
Then after come what may come. 'Tis man's nature
[607] To make the best of a bad thing once past.
A bitter and perplexed 'what shall I do?'
Is worse to man than worst necessity.

Questenberg. Ay, doubtless, it is true: the Duke does spare us 120
The troublesome task of choosing.

Butler. Yes, the Duke
Cares with a father's feelings for his troops;
But how the Emperor feels for us, we see.

Questenberg. His cares and feelings all ranks share alike,
Nor will he offer one up to another. 125

Isolani. And therefore thrusts he us into the deserts
As beasts of prey, that so he may preserve
His dear sheep fattening in his fields at home.

Questenberg. Count, this comparison you make, not I.

Butler. Why, were we all the Court supposes us, 130
'Twere dangerous, sure, to give us liberty.

Questenberg. You have taken liberty—it was not given you.
And therefore it becomes an urgent duty
To rein it in with curbs.

Octavio. My noble friend,
This is no more than a remembrancing 135
That you are now in camp, and among warriors.
The soldier's boldness constitutes his freedom.
Could he act daringly, unless he dared
Talk even so? One runs into the other.
The boldness of this worthy officer, [pointing to Butler. 140
Which now has but mistaken in its mark,
Preserved, when nought but boldness could preserve it,
To the Emperor his capital city, Prague,
In a most formidable mutiny
Of the whole garrison. [Military music at a distance. 145
Hah! here they come!

Illo. The sentries are saluting them: this signal
Announces the arrival of the Duchess.

Octavio. Then my son Max too has returned. 'Twas he
Fetched and attended them from Carnthen hither. 150

Isolani (to Illo). Shall we not go in company to greet them?

Illo. Well, let us go.—Ho! Colonel Butler, come. [To Octavio.
You'll not forget, that yet ere noon we meet
The noble Envoy at the General's palace.

FOOTNOTES:

LINENOTES:

Scene III

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.

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.

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.