Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“ Against our General's life, has plunged us all 20
In misery—and you're his son! 'Tis yours
To make the amends—Make you the son's fidelity
Outweigh the father's treason, that the name
Of Piccolomini be not a proverb
Of infamy, a common form of cursing 25
To the posterity of Wallenstein.
Max. Where is that voice of truth which I dare follow?
It speaks no longer in my heart. We all
But utter what our passionate wishes dictate:
O that an angel would descend from Heaven, 30
And scoop for me the right, the uncorrupted,
With a pure hand from the pure Fount of Light. ”

“ If 'tis false,
Then the whole science of the stars is false. 50
For know, I have a pledge from fate itself,
That he is the most faithful of my friends.
Illo. Hast thou a pledge, that this pledge is not false?
Wallenstein. There exist moments in the life of man,
When he is nearer the great soul of the world 55
Than is man's custom, and possesses freely
The power of questioning his destiny:
And such a moment 'twas, when in the night
Before the action in the plains of Lützen,
Leaning against a tree, thoughts crowding thoughts, 60
I looked out far upon the ominous plain. ”

“ Ordonio. This fellow is a Man—he killed for hire
One whom he knew not, yet has tender scruples! 70
[Then turning to Isidore.
[837] These doubts, these fears, thy whine, thy stammering—
Pish, fool! thou blunder'st through the book of guilt,
Spelling thy villainy.
Isidore. My lord—my lord,
I can bear much—yes, very much from you!
But there's a point where sufferance is meanness: 75
I am no villain—never kill'd for hire—
My gratitude——
Ordonio. O aye—your gratitude!
'Twas a well-sounding word—what have you done with it?
Isidore. Who proffers his past favours for my virtue—
Ordonio. ”

“ Know you not
What Nature makes you mourn, she bids you heal? 230
Great evils ask great passions to redress them,
And whirlwinds fitliest scatter pestilence.
Maria. You were at length deliver'd?
Alhadra. Yes, at length
I saw the blessed arch of the whole heaven.
'Twas the first time my infant smiled! No more. 235
For if I dwell upon that moment, lady,
A fit comes on, which makes me o'er again
All I then was, my knees hang loose and drag,
And my lip falls with such an ideot laugh
That you would start and shudder!
Maria. But your husband? 240
Alhadra. ”

“ Yet, yet thou may'st be saved——
Ordonio. Saved? saved?
Alvar. One pang!
Could I call up one pang of true remorse!
Ordonio. He told me of the babes that prattled to him.
His fatherless little ones! remorse! remorse!
Where got'st thou that fool's word? Curse on remorse! 170
Can it give up the dead, or recompact
A mangled body? mangled—dashed to atoms!
Not all the blessings of a host of angels
Can blow away a desolate widow's curse!
And though thou spill thy heart's blood for atonement, 175
It will not weigh against an orphan's tear!
Alvar. But Alvar——
Ordonio. ”

“ My wife, my babes, my honour, I swear to you, 90
Name it, and I will toil to do the thing,
If it be innocent! But this, my lord!
Is not a place where you could perpetrate,
No, nor propose a wicked thing. The darkness,
When ten strides off we know 'tis cheerful moonlight, 95
Collects the guilt, and crowds it round the heart.
It must be innocent.
Ordonio. Thyself be judge.
One of our family knew this place well.
Isidore. Who? when? my lord?
Ordonio. What boots it, who or when?
Hang up thy torch—I'll tell his tale to thee. ”

“ Even so, Eliza! on that face of thine, 25
On that benignant face, whose look alone
(The soul's translucence thro' her crystal shrine!)
Has power to soothe all anguish but thine own,
A beauty hovers still, and ne'er takes wing,
But with a silent charm compels the stern 30
And tort'ring Genius of the bitter spring,
To shrink aback, and cower upon his urn.
Who then needs wonder, if (no outlet found
In passion, spleen, or strife) the Fount of Pain
O'erflowing beats against its lovely mound, 35
And in wild flashes shoots from heart to brain? ”

“ Teresa. Be more calm, I pray you.
Alhadra. And as he walked along the narrow path 190
Close by the mountain's edge, my soul grew eager;
'Twas with hard toil I made myself remember
That his Familiars held my babes and husband.
To have leapt upon him with a tiger's plunge,
And hurl'd him down the rugged precipice, 195
O, it had been most sweet!
Teresa. Hush! hush for shame!
Where is your woman's heart?
Alhadra. O gentle lady!
You have no skill to guess my many wrongs,
Many and strange! Besides, I am a Christian,
And Christians never pardon—'tis their faith! 200
Teresa. ”

“ Violent clamour. Cries of—Down with the Tyrant!
Tallien. Oppression falls. The traitor stands appall'd—
Guilt's iron fangs engrasp his shrinking soul—
He hears assembled France denounce his crimes! 245
He sees the mask torn from his secret sins—
He trembles on the precipice of fate.
Fall'n guilty tyrant! murder'd by thy rage
How many an innocent victim's blood has stain'd
Fair freedom's altar! Sylla-like thy hand 250
Mark'd down the virtues, that, thy foes removed,
Perpetual Dictator thou might'st reign,
And tyrannize o'er France, and call it freedom! ”

“ It cannot be that Thou art gone!
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd:—
And thou wert aye a masker bold! 30
What strange disguise hast now put on,
To make believe, that thou art gone?
I see these locks in silvery slips,
This drooping gait, this altered size:
But Spring-tide blossoms on thy lips. 35
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes!
Life is but thought: so think I will
That Youth and I are house-mates still.
Dew-drops are the gems of morning,
But the tears of mournful eve! 40
Where no hope is, life's a warning
That only serves to make us grieve,
When we are old ”

“ O 'tis so hard to me this night to leave thee—
A boding fear possesses me!
Wallenstein. Fear? Wherefore?
Countess. Should'st thou depart this night, and we at waking
Never more find thee!
Wallenstein. Fancies!
Countess. O my soul
Has long been weighed down by these dark forebodings. 80
And if I combat and repel them waking,
They still rush down upon my heart in dreams,
I saw thee yesternight with thy first wife
Sit at a banquet gorgeously attired.
[797] Wallenstein. This was a dream of favourable omen, 85
That marriage being the founder of my fortunes. ”

“ Thou stood'st not now a living man before me—
Octavio. I have laid open my objections to him, 190
Dissuaded him with pressing earnestness;
But my abhorrence, the full sentiment
Of my whole heart—that I have still kept sacred
To my own consciousness.
Max. And thou hast been
So treacherous? That looks not like my father! 195
I trusted not thy words, when thou didst tell me
Evil of him; much less can I now do it,
That thou calumniatest thy own self.
Octavio. I did not thrust myself into his secrecy.
Max. Uprightness merited his confidence. 200
Octavio. ”

“ Tertsky. Hadst thou but believed me!
Now seest thou how the stars have lied to thee.
Wallenstein. The stars lie not; but we have here a work
Wrought counter to the stars and destiny.
The science is still honest: this false heart 10
Forces a lie on the truth-telling heaven.
On a divine law divination rests;
Where nature deviates from that law, and stumbles
Out of her limits, there all science errs.
[740] True, I did not suspect! Were it superstition 15
Never by such suspicion t' have affronted
The human form, O may that time ne'er come
In which I shame me of the infirmity. ”

“ Be of good cheer, meek soul! I would have said:
I see a hope spring from that humble fear.
All are not strong alike through storms to steer
Right onward. What? though dread of threatened death
And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath 10
Inconstant to the truth within thy heart!
That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start,
Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife,
Or not so vital as to claim thy life:
And myriads had reached Heaven, who never knew 15
Where lay the difference 'twixt the false and true! ”

“ Go cross the main: thou seek'st no foreign land:
'Tis not the clod beneath our feet we name
Our country. Each heaven-sanctioned tie the same,
Laws, manners, language, faith, ancestral blood, 5
Domestic honour, awe of womanhood:—
With kindling pride thou wilt rejoice to see
Britain with elbow-room and doubly free!
Go seek thy countrymen! and if one scar
Still linger of that fratricidal war, 10
Look to the maid who brings thee from afar;
Be thou the olive-leaf and she the dove,
And say, I greet thee with a brother's love!
S. T. Coleridge.
Grove, Highgate, August 1829. ”

“ Ferdinand. As how, my lord? I pray you name the thing!
I would climb up an ice-glaz'd precipice
To pluck a weed you fancied.
Osorio (with embarrassment and hesitation) . Why—that—lady—
Ferdinand. 'Tis now three years, my lord! since last I saw you. 15
Have you a son, my lord?
Osorio. O miserable! [Aside.
Ferdinand! you are a man, and know this world.
[536] I told you what I wish'd—now for the truth!
She lov'd the man you kill'd!
Ferdinand (looking as suddenly alarmed) . You jest, my lord?
Osorio. And till his death is proved, she will not wed me. 20
Ferdinand. ”

“ She shall behold my suffering, my sore anguish,
Hear the complaints of the disparted soul,
And weep tears o'er me. Oh! the human race
Have steely souls—but she is as an angel.
From the black deadly madness of despair 55
Will she redeem my soul, and in soft words
Of comfort, plaining, loose this pang of death!
Octavio. Thou wilt not tear thyself away; thou canst not.
O, come, my son! I bid thee save thy virtue.
Max. Squander not thou thy words in vain. 60
The heart I follow, for I dare trust to it.
Octavio. Max! Max! ”

“ Hast tricked me foully; yet I hate thee not. 110
Why should I hate thee? this same world of ours,
'Tis but a pool amid a storm of rain,
And we the air-bladders that course up and down,
And joust and tilt in merry tournament;
And when one bubble runs foul of another, 115
The weaker needs must break.
Alvar. I see thy heart!
[875] There is a frightful glitter in thine eye
Which doth betray thee. Inly-tortured man,
This is the revelry of a drunken anguish,
Which fain would scoff away the pang of guilt, 120
And quell each human feeling.
Ordonio. Feeling! feeling! ”

“ To whom have we been faithless? Wherefore must
The evil deeds and guilt reciprocal
Of our two fathers twine like serpents round us?
Why must our fathers'
Unconquerable hate rend us asunder,
Who love each other?
Wallenstein. Max, remain with me. 80
Go you not from me, Max! Hark! I will tell thee—
How when at Prague, our winter quarters, thou
Wert brought into my tent a tender boy,
Not yet accustomed to the German winters;
Thy hand was frozen to the heavy colours; 85
Thou would'st not let them go.—
At that time did I take thee in my arms,
And with my mantle did I cover thee ”

“ And that Ordonio meditates revenge!
But my resolve is fixed! myself will rescue him,
And learn if haply he knew aught of Alvar.
Enter Valdez.
Valdez. Still sad?—and gazing at the massive door
Of that fell dungeon which thou ne'er had'st sight of,
Save what, perchance, thy infant fancy shap'd it
When the nurse still'd thy cries with unmeant threats.
Now by my faith, girl! this same wizard haunts thee!
A stately man, and eloquent and tender—
Who then need wonder if a lady sighs
Even at the thought of what these stern Dominicans—
Teresa. ”

“ You are poor!
Alvar. What follows thence?
Ordonio. That you would fain be richer.
The inquisition, too—You comprehend me?
You are poor, in peril. I have wealth and power, 85
Can quench the flames, and cure your poverty:
And for the boon I ask of you but this,
That you should serve me—once—for a few hours.
Alvar. Thou art the son of Valdez! would to Heaven
That I could truly and for ever serve thee. 90
Ordonio. ”

“ Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty! 25
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind,
If Lewti never will be kind.
The little cloud—it floats away
Away it goes; away so soon!
Alas! it has no power to stay: 30
Its hues are dim, its hues are grey—
Away it passes from the moon!
How mournfully it seems to fly,
Ever fading more and more,
To joyless regions of the sky— 35
And now 'tis whiter than before!
As white as my poor cheek will be,
When, Lewti! on my couch I lie,
A dying man for love of thee.
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind— 40
And yet, thou didst not look unkind. ”