Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ The imprisonment of Egmont rouses all the latent energies of her mind. She, who, "save to church," had never trod the public streets, rushes to the market-place, and strives with kindling words to excite the people to save their leader. Her efforts are vain; and those whom life has parted death re-unites. Count Egmont, one of the Protestant leaders in the Netherlands, was imprisoned and executed by the Duke of Alba. The first victim in as noble a cause, crowned by as glorious a triumph, as history records.
Scene I.— (Clara, Mother, Brackenberg.) ”

“ The merchant swept the main,
The peasant drove the lowing herd
And sowed the golden grain.
The hunter took the glad green wood,
The soldier drew his sword;
"I am," quoth he, "by title good,
A universal lord." ”

“ Rich with sweet nature's bounty, fair with flowers,
Or golden with the early harvest's corn:
The heaven above us shed its blessings round.
I felt more keenly my humanity,
And lofty impulses, and generous thoughts,
Swelled in my bounding veins. To serve mankind
Was uppermost in the young hunter's thoughts. ”

“ Our stream will carry all before its tide.
The enemy will falter, and then yield.
They have but hired guards to meet our might—
Soldiers against the people! they'll not stand.
Count Egmont, he will marshal our return. ”

“ On your own thresholds have ye stood with shouts!
Ye! whom I loved, because ye honoured him.
Is he become a tyrant that ye shrink
From sharing in his fall? Ye loved him once.
Oh, these weak hands! could ye but grasp a sword,
And ye fond arms! that have so often held
The hero prisoned in their soft restraint,
Can ye do nothing for him?
3d Citizen.
Yonder is Alba's guard: we must away. ”

“ In vain to seek my little flower a weary look I send,
Or knight or serf who brought it me should be my dearest friend.
The Rose.
'Tis I, the Rose! thy prison-grate has kept us long apart;
But noble is thy spirit, Knight, ill-fated as thou art,
Since she that is the queen of flowers is queen too of thy heart.
The Knight.
Now honour to thy purple, beneath its green moss dress,
Fair maidens grow more fair who wreath with thee each auburn tress;
But thou art not the flower I ask to soothe my loneliness.
The Lily.
A haughty beauty is the Rose, she claims the highest place ”

“ A thousand times—flung off their weight with thee?
Since when has death grown fearful; with whose face,
As with familiar images of life,
Thou hast been wont to live; what ails thee, Sleep!
A natural horror sinks my shuddering soul. ”

“ Well may the young and true weep above his ashes,
Honouring the unforgotten one who slumbereth here;
Yet, amid the fields of death, where the red war-spear flashes,
German hearts will hold his remembrance dear. ”

“ Sweet Pauline, could I buy thee
With gold or its worth,
I would not deny thee
The wealth of the earth.
They talk of the pleasure
That riches bestow—
Without thee, my treasure,
What joy could I know? ”

“ Where the Rhine's flowing, and the vine's growing,
They spring in their arms from the shore;
Like the lightning they cleave the dark stream's flowing,
For the enemy flies before!
⁠Ask what dark swimmers heedless go? ”

“ In earnest prayer to heaven for Egmont's sake.
Now, with God's blessing, ask it of yourselves.
Mine be your watch word—Egmont! freedom! death!
3d Citizen.
The evil that would bring upon our heads!
Clara.
Stay yet a little while. Fly not the name
Your shouts so lately bore to yonder heaven. ”

“ Frank, innocent, glad thoughts. He is a child,
And useth childish phrase; our common words,
The workaday and worldly, are too harsh,
Too cold a language, for his gentle mouth,
Which has a music like the lisping child. ”

“ We need only preface this scene by observing that the heroine, a girl of inferior rank, is beloved by Count Egmont. Brackenberg has been her friend and lover from childhood; and partly to preserve her secret, but still more from a mistaken kindness, which hopes that affection can be an equivalent for love, Clara encourages his visits. I only attempt (with one exception) , to render the scenes in which she appears. Clara's character appears to me full of interest and poetry. You see her first, simple, and ignorant of that world from which she has lived secluded. ”

“ But shame beside thy pillow stand!
⁠A German maid shall kiss thee not,
⁠A German song rejoice thee not,
⁠And German wine shall warm thee not!
He who has strength to wield a brand,
Let him draw it now for his father-land!
When our trumpets like thunder in heaven resound,
Thou may'st be lulled to the lute's languid sound ”

“ Yet am I borne in mem'ry by the true and by the free.
Oh, were I sinking to the grave I often ask in vain,
And welcome Death stood by to loose the wasted captive's chain—
Ah, name me the Forget-me-not, I'd wake to life again! ”

“ Let him draw it now for his father-land!
When the lances are shivering, and the balls are flying,
And the dead are strewn beside the dying;
When the sight is true, and the blow is hard,
Thou may'st he watching the turn of a card. ”

“ When through the cool and tangled grass singeth the lonely rill,
I go into the thicket green, where all beside is still;
Thy face is painted on the air—I fancy thou art near!
The sun sinks down, the stars shine forth would thou wert really here! ”

“ By a soft word, and by a softer look;
Where she, the gentle-loving one, hath failed,
The proud or stern might never yet succeed.
Strength, power, and majesty, belong to man;
They make the glory native to his life ”

“ And yet they lead me onwards, while in their swimming light
I think not of my dangers when day declines in night.
Oh, false and lovely beacons! too soon they'll set, and shew
What dark and dreary caverns their sunshine hides below. ”

“ It hath high privileges, my Amy, belonging to it—this most noble order—for even the King of Spain himself, who hath now succeeded to the honours and demesnes of Burgundy, may not sit in judgment upon a knight of the Golden Fleece, unless by assistance and consent of the great chapter of the order. It belongs properly to Flanders; and Egmont and Orange have pride in seeing it displayed on an English bosom.'"— Kenilworth. ”

“ Her cheek is flushed—'tis with the eagerness
Of the young warrior—but they heed her not.
A selfish fear has paralysed the crowd—
The future is not with them—and they seek
Precarious safety by its sacrifice. ”

“ The world, save where it shines, is as a blank
Which memory, like the melancholy moon,
Fills with a borrowed light. The youth is pale,
As if his childhood taxed a mothers care
With many anxious hours. ”

“ Within her sunny hand,
That knew the shine and showers
Of some more glorious land.
The winter ice was broken,
The waters flashed with gold;
She brought to each a token,
The young man and the old. ”

“ VERSIONS FROM THE GERMAN.
(Fourth Series.)
The Huron's Child.— Herder.
The only child within the tent,
Beneath the old fir-tree:
How pleasantly his days were spent—
The young, the glad, the free. ”

“ The above scene certainly suggested to Sir Walter Scott the exquisite one in "Kenilworth," where Leicester comes to visit Amy, garbed as befits his rank. A brief portion will shew the general resemblance. "Meanwhile, the earl affected to resist, when she strove to take his cloak from him. ‘Nay.' she said, ‘but I will unmantle you. I must see if you have kept your word to me, and come as the great earl that men call thee ”