Page:Wallenstein, a drama in 2 parts - Schiller (tr. Coleridge) (1800).djvu/247

Here every coming hour broods into life
Some new affrightful monster.

DUCHESS.
Thou wilt share
An easier, calmer lot, my child! We, too,
I and thy father, witness'd happy days.
Still think I with delight of those first years,
When he was making progress with glad effort,
When his ambition was a genial fire,
Not that consuming flame which now it is.
The emperor lov'd him, trusted him; and all
He undertook, could not but be successful.
But since that ill-starr'd day at Regenspurg,
Which plung'd him headlong from his dignity,
A gloomy uncompanionable spirit,
Unsteady and suspicious, has possess'd him.
His quiet mind forsook him, and no longer
Did he yield up himself in joy and faith
To his old luck, and individual power;
But thenceforth turn'd his heart and best affections
All to those cloudy sciences, which never
Have yet made happy him who followed them.

COUNTESS.
You see it, sister! as your eyes permit you.
But surely this is not the conversation
To pass the time in which we are waiting for him.
You know he will be soon here. Would you have him
Find her in this condition?

DUCHESS.