158
THE PICCOLOMINI, OR THE
Fix'd to the people's pious nursery-faith.
This, this will be no strife of strength with strength.
That fear'd I not. I brave each combatant,
Whom I can look on, fixing eye to eye,
Who full himself of courage kindles courage
In me too. 'Tis a foe invisible,
The which I fear—a fearful enemy,
Which in the human heart opposes me,
By it's coward fear alone made fearful to me.
Not that, which full of life, instinct with pow'r,
Makes known it's present being, that is not
The true, the perilously formidable.
O no! it is the common, the quite common,
The thing of an eternal yesterday,
What ever was, and ever more returns,
Sterling to-morrow, for to-day 'twas sterling!
For of the wholly common is man made,
And custom is his nurse! Woe then to them,
Who lay irreverent hands upon his old
House furniture, the dear inheritance
From his forefathers. For time consecrates;
And what is grey with age becomes religion.
Be in possession, and thou hast the right,
And sacred will the many guard it for thee!
(To the Page, who here enters.)
The Swedish officer?—Well, let him enter.
(The Page exit, Wallenstein fixes his eye in
deep thought on the door.)
Yet is it pure—as yet!—the crime has come
Not o'er this threshold yet—so slender is
The boundary that divideth life's two paths.
This, this will be no strife of strength with strength.
That fear'd I not. I brave each combatant,
Whom I can look on, fixing eye to eye,
Who full himself of courage kindles courage
In me too. 'Tis a foe invisible,
The which I fear—a fearful enemy,
Which in the human heart opposes me,
By it's coward fear alone made fearful to me.
Not that, which full of life, instinct with pow'r,
Makes known it's present being, that is not
The true, the perilously formidable.
O no! it is the common, the quite common,
The thing of an eternal yesterday,
What ever was, and ever more returns,
Sterling to-morrow, for to-day 'twas sterling!
For of the wholly common is man made,
And custom is his nurse! Woe then to them,
Who lay irreverent hands upon his old
House furniture, the dear inheritance
From his forefathers. For time consecrates;
And what is grey with age becomes religion.
Be in possession, and thou hast the right,
And sacred will the many guard it for thee!
(To the Page, who here enters.)
The Swedish officer?—Well, let him enter.
(The Page exit, Wallenstein fixes his eye in
deep thought on the door.)
Yet is it pure—as yet!—the crime has come
Not o'er this threshold yet—so slender is
The boundary that divideth life's two paths.
SCENE
