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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 35

       Well for the whole, if there be found a man,

       Who makes himself what nature destined him,

       The pause, the central point to thousand thousands —

       Stands fixed and stately, like a firm-built column,

       Where all may press with joy and confidence. 40

       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.

      Questenberg. The army? Doubtless!

      Octavio (aside). Hush! suppress it, friend!

       Unless some end were answered by the utterance. — 45

       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 50

       Like things of every day. — But in the field,

       Aye, 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 55

       Likewise his privilege to move and act

       In all the correspondencies of greatness.

       The oracle within him, that which lives,

       He must invoke and question — not dead books,

       Not ordinances, not mould-rotted papers. 60

      Octavio. 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 65

       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, 70

       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 cornfield and the hill of vines, 75

       Honouring the holy bounds of property!

       And thus secure, though late, leads to its end.

      Questenberg. O hear your father, noble youth! hear him,

       Who is at once the hero and the man.

      Octavio. My son, the nursling of the camp spoke in thee! 80

       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. 85

       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! 90

       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! 95

       But on some morrow morn, all suddenly,

       The tents drop down, the horde renews its march.

       Dreary, and solitary as a churchyard

       The meadow and down-trodden seed-plot lie,

       And the year’s harvest is gone utterly. 100

      Max. O let the Emperor make peace, my father!

       Most gladly would I give the bloodstained laurel

       For the first violet of the leafless spring,

       Plucked in those quiet fields where I have journeyed!

      Octavio. What ails thee? What so moves thee all at once? 105

      Max. Peace have I ne’er beheld? I have beheld 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 110

       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, 115

       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’ landing.

       Whate’er in the inland dales the land conceals 120

       Of fair and exquisite, O! nothing, nothing,

       Do we behold of that in our rude voyage.

      Octavio. 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, 125

       The painful toil, which robbed me of my youth,

       Left me a heart unsoul’d and solitary,

       A spirit uninformed, unornamented.

       For the camp’s stir and crowd and ceaseless larum,

       The neighing war-horse, the air-shattering trumpet, 130

       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 — 135

       This cannot be the sole felicity,

       These cannot be man’s best and only pleasures.

      Octavio. 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

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