That, crowded in the rank and narrow ship, Nor know aught of the main land but the bays Oct. (attentive with an appearance of uneasiness). 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, 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- These cannot be man's best and only pleasures. Oct. Much hast thou learnt, my son, in this short journey. Max. O! day thrice lovely! when at length the soldier Returns home into life; when he becomes A fellow-man among his fellow-men. The colours are unfurled, the cavalcade Marshals, and now the buzz is hushed, and hark! Now the soft peace-march beats, home, brothers, home! The caps and helmets are all garlanded With green boughs, the last plundering of the fields. The city gates fly open of themselves, They need no longer the petard to tear them. The ramparts are all filled with men and women, Which they make breezy with affectionate gestures. The joyous vespers of a bloody day. O happy man, O fortunate! for whom The well-known door, the faithful arms are open, The faithful tender arms with mute embracing. Ques. (apparently much affected). O! that you should speak Of such a distant, distant time, and not Of the to-morrow, not of this to-day. Max. (turning round to him quick and vehement). What else still worse, because he spares the Saxons, And tries to awaken confidence in the enemy; Which yet's the only way to peace: for if War intermit not during war, how then And whence can peace come?Your own plagues fall on you! (Exit.) SCENE V. QUESTENBERG, OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI. Ques. Alas, alas! and stands it so? (Then in pressing and impatient tones,) What, friend! and do we let him go away In this delusion-Let him go away? Not call him back immediately, not open Oct. (recovering himself out of a deep study). He has now opened Oct. Come, come along, friend! I must follow up |