Ne'er will her prosperous genius turn from Austria, While two such stars, with blessed influences Beaming protection, shine above her hosts.

Max. Hey!-Noble minister! You miss your part.

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.
Oct. [to MAX.] He comes from court, where
people are not quite

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.
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.
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

Well for the whole, if there be found a man,
Who makes himself what nature destined him,
The pause, the central point to thousand thous-

ands

Stands fixed and stately, like a firm-built column,
Where all may press with joy and confidence.
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.
Ques. The army? Doubtless!

Oct. [aside to QUESTENBERG.] Hush! suppress it, friend'!

Unless some end were answered by the utterance.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
Like things of every day.-But in the field,
Ay, there the Present Being makes itself felt.
The personal must command, the actual eye
Examine. If to be the chieftain asks
All that is great in nature, let it be
Likewise his privilege to move and act
In all the correspondences of greatness.
The oracle within him, that which lives,
He must invoke and question-not dead books,
Not ordinances, not mould-rotted papers.

Oct. 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
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,
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, Honouring the holy bounds of property!

And thus secure, though late, leads to its end. Ques. O hear your father, noble youth! hear

him

Who is at once the hero and the man.

Oct. My son, the nursling of the camp spoke in thee!

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.
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!

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 Are crowded with new freights, trade stirs and hurries!

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.

Max. O let the Emperor make peace, my father! Most gladly would I give the blood-stained laurel For the first violet of the leafless spring,

Plucked in those quiet fields where I have journeyed!

Oct. What ails thee? What so moves thee all

at once?

Max. Peace have I ne'er beheld? I have be

held 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 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, 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' land

ing.

Whate'er in the inland dales the land conceals Of fair and exquisite, O! nothing, nothing, Do we behold of that in our rude voyage. Oct. [attentive with an appearance of uneasiness.] 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,

The painful toil, which robbed me of my youth, Left me a heart unsouled and solitary,

A spirit uninformed, unornamented.

For the camp's stir and crowd and ceaseless larum,
The neighing war-horse, the air-shattering trumpet,
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-
This cannot be the sole felicity,

These cannot be man's best and only pleasures. Oct. Much hast thou learnt, my son, in this short journey.