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And whereWhere is You have not told me all.

CAPTAIN (after a pause).

This morning We buried him. Twelve youths of noblest birth Did bear him to interment; the whole army Follow'd the bier. A laurel deck'd his coffin; The sword of the deceased was placed upon it, In mark of honor, by the Rhinegrave's self. Nor tears were wanting; for there are among us Many, who had themselves experienced The greatness of his mind, and gentle manners; All were affected at his fate. The Rhinegrave Would willingly have saved him; but himself Made vain the attempt-'t is said he wish'd to die. NEUBRUNN (to THEKLA, who has hidden her coun

tenance).

Look up, my dearest lady

THEKLA.

CAPTAIN.

SCENE V.

THEKLA, LADY NEUBRUNN.

THEKLA (falls on LADY NEUBRUNN's neck). Now, gentle Neubrunn, show me the affection Which thou hast ever promised-prove thyself My own true friend and faithful fellow-pilgrim. This night we must away!

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Is now the only place,
Where life yet dwells for me: detain me not!

Where is his grave? Come and make preparations: let us think
Of means to fly from hence.

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[THEKLA steps to the table, and takes a ring from Under the hoofs of his war-horses? a casket.

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NEUBRUNN.

Heaven!

And then the many posts of the enemy!

THEKLA.

They are human beings. Misery travels free Through the whole earth.

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She will shed tears.

The pang will soften.

COUNTESS.

I find thee alter'd too,

My brother! After such a victory
I had expected to have found in thee
A cheerful spirit. O remain thou firm!
Sustain, uphold us! For our light thou art,
Our sun.

To a deep quiet, such as he has found,
It draws me on, I know not what to name it,
Resistless does it draw me to his grave.
There will my heart be eased, my tears will flow.
O hasten, make no further questioning!
There is no rest for me till I have left
These walls-they fall in on me-a dim power
Drives me from hence-O mercy! What a feeling!
What pale and hollow forms are those! They fill,
They crowd the place! I have no longer room here!
Mercy! Still more! More still! The hideous swarm!
They press on me; they chase me from these walls-Thy husband?
Those hollow, bodiless forms of living men!

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WALLENSTEIN.

Be quiet. I ail nothing. Where's

* The soliloquy of Thekla consists in the original of six-andtwenty lines, twenty of which are in rhymes of irregular recurrence. I thought it prudent to abridge it. Indeed the whole scene between Thekla and Lady Neubrunn might, perhaps, have been omitted without injury to the play.

COUNTESS.

At a banquet-he and Illo. WALLENSTEIN (rises and strides across the saloon). The night's far spent. Betake thee to thy chamber.

COUNTESS.

Bid me not go, O let me stay with thee!

WALLENSTEIN (moves to the window). There is a busy motion in the Heaven, The wind doth chase the flag upon the tower, Fast sweep the clouds, the sickle of the moon, Struggling, darts snatches of uncertain light. No form of star is visible! That one

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WALLENSTEIN.

White stain of light, that single glimmering yonder, This anguish will be wearied down,* I know ;

Is from Cassiopeia, and therein

Is Jupiter. (A pause). But now

The blackness of the troubled element hides him!

[He sinks into profound melancholy, and looks vacantly into the distance.

COUNTESS (looks on him mournfully, then grasps his

hand).

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What pang is permanent with man? From the highest,
As from the vilest thing of every day
He learns to wean himself: for the strong hours
Conquer him. Yet I feel what I have lost
In him. The bloom is vanish'd from my life.
For O! he stood beside me, like my youth,
Transform'd for me the real to a dream,
Clothing the palpable and the familiar
With golden exhalations of the dawn.
Whatever fortunes wait my future toils,
The beautiful is vanish'd-and returns not.

COUNTESS.

O be not treacherous to thy own power.
Thy heart is rich enough to vivify
Itself. Thou lovest and prizest virtues in him,
The which thyself didst plant, thyself unfold.

WALLENSTEIN (stepping to the door).

Who interrupts us now at this late hour?
It is the Governor. He brings the keys
Of the Citadel. "Tis midnight. Leave me, sister!

COUNTESS.

O'tis so hard to me this night to leave theeA boding fear possesses me!

WALLENSTEIN.

Fear? Wherefore?'

WALLENSTEIN.

He, the more fortunate! yea, he hath finish'd!
For him there is no longer any future,

His life is bright-bright without spot it was,
And cannot cease to be. No ominous hour
Knocks at his door with tidings of mishap.
Far off is he, above desire and fear;

No more submitted to the change and chance
Of the unsteady planets. O'tis well

With him! but who knows what the coming hour
Veil'd in thick darkness brings for us?

• These four lines are expressed in the original with exquisite felicity.

Am Himmel ist geschaftige Bewegung,

Des Thurmes Fahne jagt der Wind, schnell geht Der Wolken Zug, die Mondes-Sichel wankt, Und durch die Nacht zuckt ungewisse Helle. The word "moon-sickle," reminds me of a passage in Har ris, as quoted by Johnson, under the word "falcated." "The enlightened part of the moon appears in the form of a sickle or reaping book, which is while she is moving from the conjunction to the opposition, or from the new-moon to the full: but from full to a new again, the enlightened part appears gibbous, and the dark falcated."

The words "wanken" and "schweben" are not easily translated. The English words, by which we attempt to render them, are either vulgar or pedantic, or not of sufficiently general application. So der Wolken Zug"-The Draft, the Procession of clouds.-The Masses of the Clouds sweep onward in swift stream.

COUNTESS.

Shouldst thou depart this night, and we at waking Never more find thee!

WALLENSTEIN. Fancies!

COUNTESS.

O my soul

Has long been weigh'd down by these dark forebodings.
And if I combat and repel them waking,
They still rush down upon my heart in dreams.
I saw thee yester-night with thy first wife
Sit at a banquet gorgeously attired.

WALLENSTEIN.

This was a dream of favorable omen,
That marriage being the founder of my fortunes.

COUNTESS.

To-day I dreamt that I was seeking thee
In thy own chamber. As I enter'd, lo!
It was no more a chamber: the Chartreuse
At Gitschin 't was, which thou thyself hast founded,

* A very inadequate translation of the original. Verschmerzen werd' ich diesen Schlag, das weiss ich, Denn was verschmerzte nicht der Mensch!

LITERALLY.

I shall grieve down this blow, of that I'm conscious: What does not man grieve down?

And where it is thy will that thou shouldst be
Interr'd.

WALLENSTEIN.

Thy soul is busy with these thoughts.

COUNTESS.

What! dost thou not believe that oft in dreams
A voice of warning speaks prophetic to us?

WALLENSTEIN.

There is no doubt that there exist such voices.
Yet I would not call them

Voices of warning that announce to us
Only the inevitable. As the sun,

Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image
In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits
Of great events stride on before the events,
And in to-day already walks to-morrow.
That which we read of the fourth Henry's death
Did ever vex and haunt me like a tale
Of my own future destiny. The king
Felt in his breast the phantom of the knife,
Long ere Ravaillac arm'd himself therewith.
His quiet mind forsook him: the phantasma
Started him in his Louvre, chased him forth
Into the open air: like funeral knells
Sounded that coronation festival;
And still with boding sense he heard the tread
Of those feet that even then were seeking him
Throughout the streets of Paris.

COUNTESS.

And to thee

The voice within thy soul bodes nothing?

WALLENSTEIN.

Be wholly tranquil.

COUNTESS.

And another time

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Well, it has lasted long enough. Here-give it.
[He takes and looks at the chain.
"Twas the first present of the Emperor.
He hung it round me in the war of Friule,
He being then Archduke; and I have worn it
Till now from habit-

Nothing. From superstition, if you will. Belike,
It was to be a Talisman to me;

I hasten'd after thee, and thou rann'st from me
Through a long suite, through many a spacious hall,
There seem'd no end of it: doors creak'd and clapp'd;
I follow'd panting, but could not o'ertake thee;
When on a sudden did I feel myself

Grasp'd from behind-the hand was cold, that
grasp'd me-

"Twas thou, and thou didst kiss me, and there seem'd A crimson covering to envelop us.

WALLENSTEIN.

That is the crimson tapestry of my chamber.
COUNTESS (gazing on him),

If it should come to that-if I should see thee,
Who standest now before me in the fullness
Of life-

And while I wore it on my neck in faith,
It was to chain to me all my life long
The volatile fortune, whose first pledge it was.
Well, be it so! Henceforward a new fortune
Must spring up for me; for the potency
Of this charm is dissolved.

GROOM OF THE CHAMBER retires with the vest-
ments. WALLENSTEIN rises, takes a stride
across the room, and stands at last before
GORDON in a posture of meditation.

How the old time returns upon me! I
Behold myself once more at Burgau, where
We two were Pages of the Court together.
We oftentimes disputed: thy intention

Was ever good; but thou wert wont to play
The Moralist and Preacher, and wouldst rail at me-

[She falls on his breast and weeps. That I strove after things too high for me,

WALLENSTEIN.

The Emperor's proclamation weighs upon thee-
Alphabets wound not-and he finds no hands.

COUNTESS.

If he should find them, my resolve is taken-
I bear about me my support and refuge.

[Exit COUNTESS.

SCENE II.
WALLENSTEIN, GORDON.

WALLENSTEIN.

All quiet in the town?

GORDON.

The town is quiet.

Giving my faith to bold unlawful dreams,
And still extol to me the golden mean.

-Thy wisdom hath been proved a thriftless friend
To thy own self. See, it has made thee early
A superannuated man, and (but

That my munificent stars will intervene)
Would let thee in some miserable corner
Go out like an untended lamp.

GORDON.

My Prince!
With light heart the poor fisher moors his boat,
And watches from the shore the lofty ship
Stranded amid the storm.

WALLENSTEIN.

Art thou already

In harbor then, old man? Well! I am not.

The unconquer'd spirit drives me o'er life's billows;
My planks still firm, my canvas swelling proudly.
Hope is my goddess still, and Youth my inmate;
And while we stand thus front to front almost,
I might presume to say, that the swift years
Have pass'd by powerless o'er my unblanch'd hair.
[He moves with long strides across the Saloon, and
remains on the opposite side over-against
GORDON.

Who now persists in calling Fortune false?
To me she has proved faithful, with fond love
Took me from out the common ranks of men,
And like a mother goddess, with strong arm
Carried me swiftly up the steps of life.
Nothing is common in my destiny,

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And yet remember I the good old proverb,
"Let the night come before we praise the day."
I would be slow from long-continued fortune
To gather hope for Hope is the companion
Given to the unfortunate by pitying Heaven;
Fear hovers round the head of prosperous men:
For still unsteady are the scales of fate.

WALLENSTEIN (smiling).

I hear the very Gordon that of old

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Come and see! trust thine own eyes!

A fearful sign stands in the house of life-
An enemy; a fiend lurks close behind
The radiance of thy planet.-O be warn'd!

Was wont to preach to me, now once more preaching; Deliver not thyself up to these heathens,

I know well, that all sublunary things

Are still the vassals of vicissitude.

The unpropitious gods demand their tribute.
This long ago the ancient Pagans knew:

And therefore of their own accord they offer'd
To themselves injuries, so to atone

The jealousy of their divinities:

And human sacrifices bled to Typhon.

[After a pause, serious, and in a more subdued

manner.

I too have sacrificed to him-For me
There fell the dearest friend, and through my fault
He fell! No joy from favorable fortune
Can overweigh the anguish of this stroke.

The envy of my destiny is glutted:

Life pays for life. On his pure head the lightning Was drawn off which would else have shatter'd me.

SCENE III.

To these enter SENI.

WALLENSTEIN.

Is not that Seni ? and beside himself,

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terest.

If one may trust his looks? What brings thee hither But what if the arrival of these Swedes

GORDON (with difficulty suppressing his emotion).

At this late hour, Baptista?

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What if this were the very thing that wing'd The ruin that is flying to your temples? [Flings himself at his feet.

There is yet time, my Prince.

SENI.

O hear him! hear him!

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