Wallensteins Camp | Page 6

the

sun, to gladden us all.
(Kisses her.)
DRAGOON (tears her away).
I tell you again, that it
shan't be done.
FIRST YAGER.
The pipers are coming, lads! now for fun!
SECOND YAGER (to Dragoon).
I shan't be far off, should you look
for me.
SERGEANT.
Peace, my good fellows!--a kiss goes free.
SCENE VIII.
Enter Miners, and play a waltz--at first slowly, and
afterwards
quicker. The first Yager dances with the girl, the Sutler-woman with
the recruit. The girl springs away, and the Yager, pursuing her, seizes
hold of a Capuchin
Friar just entering.
CAPUCHIN.
Hurrah! halloo! tol, lol, de rol, le!
The fun's at its
height! I'll not be away!
Is't an army of Christians that join in such
works?
Or are we all turned Anabaptists and Turks?
Is the Sabbath
a day for this sport in the land,
As though the great God had the gout
in his hand,
And thus couldn't smite in the midst of your band?
Say,
is this a time for your revelling shouts,
For your banquetings, feasts,
and holiday bouts?
Quid hic statis otiosi? declare
Why, folding
your arms, stand ye lazily there?
While the furies of war on the
Danube now fare
And Bavaria's bulwark is lying full low,
And
Ratisbon's fast in the clutch of the foe.
Yet, the army lies here in
Bohemia still,
And caring for naught, so their paunches they fill!

Bottles far rather than battles you'll get,
And your bills than your
broad-swords more readily wet;
With the wenches, I ween, is your
dearest concern,
And you'd rather roast oxen than Oxenstiern.
In
sackcloth and ashes while Christendom's grieving,
No thought has the
soldier his guzzle of leaving.
'Tis a time of misery, groans, and tears!


Portentous the face of the heavens appears!
And forth from the
clouds behold blood-red,
The Lord's war-mantle is downward
spread--
While the comet is thrust as a threatening rod,
From the
window of heaven by the hand of God.
The world is but one vast
house of woe,
The ark of the church stems a bloody flow,
The Holy
Empire--God help the same!
Has wretchedly sunk to a hollow name.

The Rhine's gay stream has a gory gleam,
The cloister's nests are
robbed by roysters;
The church-lands now are changed to lurch-lands;

Abbacies, and all other holy foundations
Now are but
robber-sees--rogues' habitations.
And thus is each once-blest German
state,
Deep sunk in the gloom of the desolate!
Whence comes all
this? Oh, that will I tell--
It comes of your doings, of sin, and of hell;

Of the horrible, heathenish lives ye lead,
Soldiers and officers, all
of a breed.
For sin is the magnet, on every hand,
That draws your
steel throughout the land!
As the onion causes the tear to flow,
So
vice must ever be followed by woe--
The W duly succeeds the V,

This is the order of A, B, C.
Ubi erit victoriae spes,
Si offenditur
Deus? which says,
How, pray ye, shall victory e'er come to pass,
If
thus you play truant from sermon and mass,
And do nothing but
lazily loll o'er the glass?
The woman, we're told in the Testament,

Found the penny in search whereof she went.
Saul met with his
father's asses again,
And Joseph his precious fraternal train,
But he,
who 'mong soldiers shall hope to see
God's fear, or shame, or
discipline--he
From his toil, beyond doubt, will baffled return,

Though a hundred lamps in the search he burn.
To the wilderness
preacher, th' Evangelist says,
The soldiers, too, thronged to repent of
their ways,
And had themselves christened in former days.
Quid
faciemus nos? they said:
Toward Abraham's bosom what path must
we tread?
Et ait illis, and, said he,
Neminem concutiatis;
From
bother and wrongs leave your neighbors free.
Neque calumniam
faciatis;
And deal nor in slander nor lies, d'ye see?
Contenti
estote--content ye, pray,
Stipendiis vestris--with your pay--
And
curse forever each evil way.
There is a command--thou shalt not utter


The name of the Lord thy God in vain;
But, where is it men most
blasphemies mutter?
Why here, in Duke Friedland's headquarters, 'tie
plain
If for every thunder, and every blast,
Which blazing ye from
your tongue-points cast,
The bells were but rung, in the country round,

Not a bellman, I ween, would there soon be found;
And if for each
and every unholy prayer
Which to vent from your jabbering jaws you
dare,
From your noddles were plucked but the smallest hair,
Ev'ry
crop would be smoothed ere the sun went down,
Though at morn
'twere as bushy as Absalom's crown.
Now, Joshua, methinks, was a
soldier as well--
By the arm of King David the Philistine fell;
But
where do we find it written, I pray,
That they ever blasphemed in this
villanous way?
One would think ye need stretch your jaws no more,

To cry, "God help us!" than "Zounds!" to roar.
But, by the liquor
that's poured in the cask, we know
With what it will bubble and
overflow.
Again, it is written--thou shalt not steal,
And this you
follow, i'faith! to the letter,
For open-faced robbery suits ye better.

The gripe of your vulture claws you fix
On all--and your wiles and
rascally tricks
Make the gold unhid in our coffers now,
And the calf
unsafe while yet in the cow--
Ye take both the egg and the hen, I vow.

Contenti estote--the preacher said;
Which means--be content with
your army