FIRST PART OF WALLENSTEIN.
157
And all the May-games of a heart o'erflowing,
Will they connect, and weave them all together
Into one web of treason; all will be plan,
My eye ne'er absent from the far-off mark,
Step tracing step, each step a politic progress;
And out of all they'll fabricate a charge
So specious, that I must myself stand dumb.
I am caught in my own net, and only force,
Naught but a sudden rent can liberate me.
(Pauses again.)
How else! since that the heart's unbias'd instinct
Impell'd me to the daring deed, which now
Necessity, self-preservation, orders.
Stern is the On-look of necessity,
Not without shudder may a human hand
Grasp the mysterious urn of destiny.
My deed was mine, remaining in my bosom,
Once suffer'd to escape from it's safe corner
Within the heart, it's nursery and birth-place,
Sent forth into the Foreign, it belongs
For ever to those sly malicious powers
Whom never art of man conciliated.
(Paces in agitation through the chamber,
then pauses, and, after the pause, breaks
out again into audible soliloquy.)
What is thy enterprize? thy aim? thy object?
Haft honestly confess'd it to thyself?
Power seated on a quiet throne thou'dst shake,
Power on an ancient consecrated throne,
Strong in possession, founded in old custom;
Power by a thousand tough and stringy roots
Will they connect, and weave them all together
Into one web of treason; all will be plan,
My eye ne'er absent from the far-off mark,
Step tracing step, each step a politic progress;
And out of all they'll fabricate a charge
So specious, that I must myself stand dumb.
I am caught in my own net, and only force,
Naught but a sudden rent can liberate me.
(Pauses again.)
How else! since that the heart's unbias'd instinct
Impell'd me to the daring deed, which now
Necessity, self-preservation, orders.
Stern is the On-look of necessity,
Not without shudder may a human hand
Grasp the mysterious urn of destiny.
My deed was mine, remaining in my bosom,
Once suffer'd to escape from it's safe corner
Within the heart, it's nursery and birth-place,
Sent forth into the Foreign, it belongs
For ever to those sly malicious powers
Whom never art of man conciliated.
(Paces in agitation through the chamber,
then pauses, and, after the pause, breaks
out again into audible soliloquy.)
What is thy enterprize? thy aim? thy object?
Haft honestly confess'd it to thyself?
Power seated on a quiet throne thou'dst shake,
Power on an ancient consecrated throne,
Strong in possession, founded in old custom;
Power by a thousand tough and stringy roots
Fix'd
