For the blithe route the banners are unfurl'd,
And homeward beats the melting march of peace;
When every cap and helmet is bedeck'd
With bows, the latest plunder of the fields;
The city's gates fly open of themselves—
They need no longer the petard to burst them:
The walls are circled with rejoicing thousands,
With peaceful people greeting i' the air:
Clear sounds from every tower the bell that peals
The jocund vespers of the days of blood:
From towns and villages comes streaming forth
A shouting throng, with loving eagerness
And importunity their march impeding.
There, happy that he lives to see that day,
The old man shakes his son's returning hand.
A stranger he comes back unto his own,
His long-forsaken home. With spreading boughs
The tree o'ershadows the long absent man,
Which oft the boy had bent ere he departed;
And bashful blushing, comes a maid to meet him,
Whom at the nurse's breast a child he left.
O happy he, for whom a door like this,
Soft arms like these, shall open to enfold him!—
Quest. (affected). Alas! that thou should'st speak of distant times, Not of to-morrow, or to-day!
II. SCENE WITH THEKLA AFTER THE DEATH OF HER LOVer,
Thekla. Now-now, good Neubrunn, may'st thou show that love Which thou hast ever vow'd to me-Now prove
Thyself my faithful friend and true attendant,
For we must forth to-night.
Thek. Whither?-there is but one place in the world—
The spot where he lies buried-TO HIS GRAVE.
Neub. What would'st thou do, my dearest lady, there?
Thek. What would I do?-unhappy girl!-thou would'st not Have ask'd that question had'st thou ever loved.
There there is all that yet remains of him,
That little spot is all the world to me.
O, seek not to detain me! Come, prepare―
Think only how we may escape from hence.
Neub. Hast thou reflected on thy father's wrath?
Thek. I dread the anger of no mortal more.
Neub. The world's cold sneer, the evil tongue of slander?
Thek. I seek for him who is not of this world.
What am I hurrying to a lover's arms?
O God, I am but hasting to his grave!
Neub. Thy heart is full of trouble, dearest lady—
That path is not the path that leads to rest.
Thek. To that deep rest, which he hath found already, O hasten, fly-stay not to question longer.
Some power, I know not what to call it, draws me,
Impels me forth, resistless, to his grave:
I feel that there my heart will soon be lighten'd;
This suffocating band of sorrow will
Be slacken'd, and my tears will flow again.
O go! we might have been already gone.
I cannot rest till I have left these walls
Behind-their arches seem to close and crush me,
And warning voices, as of spirits, cry-
Begone!-O God! what feeling's this comes o'er me?
The rooms of this accursed house are filling
With pale, and gaunt, and ghastly forms of men-
There is no room for me. What! more and more?
Still closer crowd the horrid swarm! They drive me
Forth from these fated walls-the living spectres!
Neub. You terrify me, lady. I myself
Dare not remain here longer. I will go
And summon Rosenberg.
Thek. (alone.) It is his spirit calls me ; 'tis the host
Of faithful hearts that died t' avenge his fall→→→
They beckon me, they chide my cold delay;
They would not, even in death, forsake the man
Who in their life had led them. Their rude hearts
Were capable of this, and shall I live?
Ah, no! the laurel garland which they wove
To deck thine early bier, for mine was braided:
What is this life without the light of love?
I cast it from me, for its bloom hath faded.
Yes, when I loved, and felt thy love was given,
Then life indeed was something. Glittering lay
The golden radiance of a new-born day,
And life was for an hour a dream of heaven!
Thou stood'st as on life's threshold, newly lighted,
When first I cross'd it with a maiden fear;
A thousand suns to gild my path united,
And thou wert like an angel station'd near;
From childhood's fairy land to lead me forth,
On to life's eminence my guide to be;
My first sensation was of heavenly birth!
My first fond look of love was fix'd on thee!
[She sinks into a reverie, then proceeds, with signs of horror.
But fate put forth its hand, and, rude and cold,
With iron grasp it crush'd thy tender mould;
Beneath the horses' hoofs that frame was hurl'd
So fares it with the lovely in this world.
III. WALLENSTEIN'S MUSINGS AFTER the death of MAX PICCOLO,
MINI, &c.
Wal. There is a busy muster in the heavens→→→
The nightwind hunts the castle flag-swift fly
The driving clouds-the moon her sickle shakes,
And through the night scatters uncertain gleams.
No star is in the sky: Yon languid ray,
That twinkles lonely, streams from Cassiopeia,
And thereabout is Jupiter; but yet
The darkness of the storm-cloud covers him.
[He sinks into meditation, and looks out with fixed attention. Countess (looking on him mournfully, and clasping him by the hand). What dost thou think of? Tell me, Wallenstein.
Wal. Methinks if I but saw him, it were well :
He is the star that shone upon my life,
And often hath the sight of him inspired me
With wondrous strength.
Thou wilt see him yet again.
Wall. (who has again sunk into abstraction, rouses himself and turns
hastily to the Countess).
See him again-O never, never!
Wall. For he is dead-is dust.
Coun.
Wall. HE is the happy one-His race is run.
For him there is no future more with him
Fate plays no more its treacherous game, his life
Lies foldless all and clear before his
No spot lurks darkly now-no hour for him,
With evil-boding stroke, can knell again!
High above hope and dread, beyond the sphere
Of these inconstant, these perfidious planets-
O, well with him! but who shall say what fate
For us the dark approaching hour may bring?.
Coun. Thou speak'st of Piccolomini-How died he?
The messenger went hence even as I came.
[Wallenstein motions to her with his hand to be silent.
O, look not back upon the gloomy past,
But forth into the clearer coming day.
Think of the prize, forget the price it cost.
Think not to-day that thou hast lost thy friend,
For when he left thy side he died to thee.
Wall. I know I shall forget the blow at last ;
What will not man forget? From things most dear,
Even as from things most common, is he wean'd
By the omnipotence of circumstance.
But well I feel what I have lost in him.
The flower is faded from my way of life,
And cold and dreary lies the path before me ;
For he was like the spirit of my youth,
Making reality a lovely dream,"
And with the magic mists of morning gilding
The bare and naked nothingness of things;
In the pure flame of feeling and of love
The worn and daily forms of life exalting,
Till I myself have wonder'd at the change.
Yes, I may struggle onward; but the dream-
The dream of life is gone-that comes no more;
For what are Fortune's gifts without the friend,
Who feels our joy, and doubles while he shares it?
Coun. Droop not, nor doubt of thine own strength; thy heart
Is rich enough to need no other impulse.
The virtues which thou lovest and prizest in him,
Thou hast thyself implanted and unfolded.
Wall. (going to the door). Who comes to us so late at night ?-It is
The commandant. He brings the fortress-keys.—
Leave us, my sister-Midnight is at hand.
Coun. Alas! to-night I scarce can bear to leave thee,
And fear sits heavy on me.
Coun. Thou may'st be taken from us in the night,
And we may wake and find thee never more.
Wall. Mere phantoms of the brain !—
Coun.
Long harass'd by some dark presentiments;
And when I combat them awake, they fall
In sleep upon my heart in fearful dreams.
Methought I saw thee yesternight beside
Thy former wife, at table, richly dress'd
Wall. That is a dream of happy augury;
That marriage was the footstool of my fortunes.
Coun. To-day I dreamt I sought thee in thy chamber.
I enter'd; when I look'd around, it was not
Thy chamber, but the monast'ry at Gitschin,
Which thou hast built, and where thou would'st be buried.
Wall. One painful thought preoccupies thy mind.
Con. How? Deem'st thou not that warning voices speak.
Prophetic of our fate, to us in dreams?
Wal. There are such voices, that is doubtless ;`yet
Not WARNING VOICES, since they but foretell
That which is fix'd and unavoidable.
Even as the sun's reflection in the horizon
Gleams ere he rises, so the spectral shadows
Of great events come striding on before,
And in to-day already stalks to-morrow.
I have bethought me often of the tales
Which I have heard of the fourth Henry's death.
Long ere Ravaillac's murd'rous hand had arm'd
Itself against his life, the King had felt
The visionary dagger in his breast;
It broke his nightly rest; it haunted him
Even in the guarded chambers of his Louvre ;
It drove him forth; the coronation mirth
Peal'd round him like a funeral knell; his ear
Heard the loud beating of the assassin's tread,
That sought him through the crowded streets of Paris.
Coun. And does no fearful presage tell thee aught?
Wall. Nothing-Be calm and fear not.
Coun. (relapsing into melancholy thought). Once again,
As after thee I came, thou fled'st before me
Through lengthen'd passages and empty halls,
That open'd endless on the eye. Doors beat
Together clashing; panting, on I flew,
But could not reach thee. Sudden from behind
I felt a frozen hand lay hold upon me→
'Twas thine and thou did'st kiss me; and above us
A crimson covering slowly was laid down.
ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF BONAPARTE
(From an Article on Manzoni's Italian Tragedies, in the Foreign Quarterly Review, No. I.)
"THE stormy joy, the trembling hope
That wait on mightiest enterprise ;
The panting heart of one, whose scope
Was empire, and who gain'd the prize,
And grasps a crown, of which it seem'd
Scarce less than madness to have dream'd,-
All these were his; glory that shone
The brighter for its perils past,
The rout, the victory, the throne,
The gloom of banishment at last,-
Twice in the very dust abased,
And twice on Fortune's altar raised.
His name was heard; and mute with fear
Contending centuries stood by,
Submissive, from his mouth to hear
The sentence of their destiny;
While he bade silence be, and sate
Between them, arbiter of fate.
He pass'd, and on this barren rock
Inactive closed his proud career,
A mark for envy's rudest shock,
For pity's warmest, purest tear,
For hatred's unextinguished fire,
And love that lives when all expire.
As on the drowning seaman's head
The wave comes thundering from on high;
The wave to which, afar display'd,
The wretch had turn'd his straining eye,
And gazed along the gloomy main
For some far sail, but gazed in vain :
So on his soul came back the wave
Of melancholy memory;
How oft hath he essay'd to grave
His image for posterity;
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