And sweep from the land cach plundering band?
The sword might be met by the quarter-staff,
And they, of the two, are far the more numerous :
How is it, then, that we force the riff-raff
To crouch at our feet, to serve us, and humour us―
How, I say, is it that this comes to pass,
But because we combine in one terrible' mass?
You are right, boy!-all power in the Aggregate lies;
A truth not hid from the Friedlander neither,
When eight years ago he brought under the eyes
Of the Kaiser the whole of the army together.
"Twelve thousand," 'twas told him, "they must not exceed." "Pooh!-twelve," said the Duke, "I never can feed
But let me have sixty thousand, and see
If they're not as well quartered as troops can be."
So the Kaiser agreed to shell out the shiners ;
And in double quick time we were all Wallensteiners.
No doubt. For example, unsheath your brand
And lop the least finger off my hand,
Do you think that in lopping that finger away
You have taken the finger alone? I say
You have robbed my hand of all strength and worth,
And that which remains is a stump thenceforth.
So is it with these eight thousand horse
Now ordered for Flanders; they are, as it were,
No more than the army's least finger in force;
But, lop them away, and say, if you dare,
That the army is only a fifth part the worse!
I tell you, these lost, it is up with the host;
All fear is gone by-all respect and dread-
The peasant replumes his crest, and again a
Black series of bills in the Courts of Vienna
Are filed against us for board and bed;
And then we may dine with Duke Humphrey instead
Of Duke Friedland, who also will sink in the wreck ;
There are creatures at court just now who would not
Be sorry to stamp, if they could, on his neck;
In short, we and ours will all go to pot,
For, who is to stand to us? How can we build
On the hope that our contracts will e'er be fulfilled?
Division is Ruin, while Union is Power-
Put the case look at us, as we are at this hour!
What skill or what strength could avail to pierce
Our square battalions, united and fierce,
Though of different climes, as I'll shew you.-Dragoon,
Pray, what may the name of your fatherland be ?
Old Ireland, my hearty! Slap that down for me.
SERJEANT-MAJOR, (to the two Cuirassiers.)
And you, as I take it, are-one a Walloon,
And one an Italian-I guess from your tongue.
O! deuce a know I know from whom I am sprung ;
Some vagabonds kidnapped me when I was young.
SERJEANT-MAJOR, (to the first Harquebussier.)
You were born, I am positive somewhere near this.
I come from Buchau, by the blue Feder Sea.
SERJEANT-MAJOR, (to the second Harquebussier.) And you, neighbour, yonder there?
SECOND HARQUEBUSSIER.
I am a Swiss.
SERJEANT-MAJOR, (to the first Yager.)
And you, from what part of the land are you, Yager?
'Twas Wismar gave birth to my people and me.
And you and I, Trumpeter, we are from Eger.
Yet, who that had seen us summoned to horse,
And combined by one blast from the trumpet's mouth,
Would have dreamed we thus met from north and from south,
And not rather beheld in us one dense force?
Are we not, like the complicate works of a mill,
Put in motion at once by one governing will?
Is it not by one impulse we move to oppose-
We charge we sweep down on-we sabre our foes?
And what is the power that hath knitted and fixed us
Till none who behold can distinguish betwixt us?
What is it but Wallenstein's tact and address?
To me such a view is new, I confess ;
My way is to let the rest of the horse
Fight devil, fight dog, and take my own course.
The Serjeant-Major is right! There's a most
Diabolical tampering now with the Crown;
They are hungering to trample the army down,
That they and their clique may rule the roast.
It is all a conspiracy, all a damn'd plot!
A plot? a conspiracy? Ach! mein Gott!
Then I am blown up, I am dished-that's clear!
Yes, yes! we shall soon be all bankrupts here.
I happen to know of some officers who
Are paying their men from their own privy purse,
Expecting their cash, with fat interest too,
In the end :-now these, when the Duke falls, of course,
In lieu of their having a fortune to fob,
Will find it, I'm thinking, a cursèd bad job.
Well, comrades, here's matter, no doubt, to scare us;
However 'tis plain what must be our plan;
They will not, they dare not overbear us
If we only stand out and combine as one man.
Let them issue their mandates and proclamations;
We'll stick to our old Bohemian stations;
We will not truckle-we never will bow-
The soldier contends for his honor now!
We'll not go a-tramping, the Lord knows whither :
If the Dutch want a trouncing, why, let them come hither.
My friends, you should ponder this well at your leisure. 'Tis the Kaiser's own order-his high will and pleasure.
A fig for the Kaiser! He's nothing to us.
FIRST HARQUEBUSSIER.
Come, come, my good fellow, you mustn't talk thus.
I say but the truth, and what's doubted by none.
'Tis too true for a ballad: the Kaiser did govern,
But the Friedlander now is the Sovereign's Sovereign.
Yes, that's the condition he holds office on.
He has absolute power, without shackle or bar,
To rule in the councils-make peace or make war ;
Can confiscate lands-can amerce and ban-
Proscribe and proclaim-can save and can kill-
Can hang as he pleases, or pardon at will-
Can make and unmake all field-officers-can
In fine, act as Monarch himself in the land-
This privilege he holds from the Kaiser's own hand.
He has great prerogatives-fearful powers-
That can't be denied ; but the Emperor still,
I insist, is his master as much as ours.
Not quite as much, because Wallenstein
Is, mind, a Frey-herr,-an enfranchised Prince
Of the Empire, fully as good in his line
As he of Bavaria. Not very long since
When on duty at Brandeis, did I not see
That Wallenstein's princely head was suffered
By the Kaiser himself to continue covered?
Ay, ay, friend; but that was in witness that he
Had transferred and made over into the hands
Of his General the whole of the Mecklenburgh lands.
What! wore he his hat and the Emperor by?
Confoundedly strange, if true, say I!
SERJEANT-MAJOR. (putting his hand in his pocket and producing a coin.)
If you think that I color the truth overmuch,
Perhaps you'll believe what you see and touch.
Whose image and title are stamped on this ore?
Shew here:-I protest, there is Wallenstein's face!
And pray, let me ask, what would you have more?
Is he not as a prince? Doth he not from his place
Mint money, as well as King Ferdinand?
Has he not, like a prince, his own lieges and land?
Is he not styled Serene, and Illustrious, and so forth?
And has he not armies to marshal and shew forth?
FIRST HARQUEBUSSIER.
In that which you state we all agree;
But we are the Emperor's lieges, you see;
Who pays us is Emperor, that I maintain.
And that I deny, and deny to your face.
Here nine or ten months have rolled over and we
Have been dancing attendance for payment in vain :
Who pays us not stands in our Emperor's place.
FIRST HARQUEBUSSIER (sharply.) pay is in pretty good hands, I suppose.
Peace, gentlemen! peace! Would you finish with blows?
You brangle and wrangle-to ascertain what?
If the Kaiser be really Kaiser or not!
We owe to the Kaiser profound obedience;
But because we would yield him a just allegiance
We will ne'er troop to battle like herds of cattle.
We will not, because priests and princes command,
Be driven out thus from our old Fatherland.
It is best in the end for both vassal and lord
When the soldier acts of his own accord.
Who is't but his soldiers alone that have made
The Kaiser the mighty monarch we see him?
Who is it but they that still guarantee him
His throne as a Christian Prince by their aid?
His lickspittle sycophants-they who surround
That throne-they who feast at his gilded board,
May kneel at his feet-may sprawl on the ground-
But the soldier bulwarks the State by his sword;
Though toil is his guerdon on this side the grave.
Why, then, should he yield up his MIND as a slave?
All ancient potentates, Tyrant and Kaiser,*
Took care of their soldiers-and those were the wiser.
'Twas easy to fleece and plunder away
When the army was kept in regular pay.
Let the soldier, then, feel his own rank and place!
Whose bosom by self-respect is not fenced
Will meet and deserve but contempt and disgrace.
If I gamble my life I must stake it against
A something as precious, or else I am base
Enough, like the Croat, to stand and hold
My throat up to be cut for a scantling of gold.
Yes! Honor is dearer than Life!-nothing's clearer.
It is one thing to fight, and another to labour :
You can't make a ploughshare or spade of the sabre.
It grows you no corn, bids blossom no thorn.
The soldier is homeless, countryless ;-over
The earth he must wander, a fugitive rover.
He has no flocks, no ass and no ox.
He wearily marches through strange and far lands.
The city's luxuriant and luring sheen,
The festal hamlet, the meadowy green,
The clustering vines and the harvest garlands
Are things he can only remotely survey.
Where, then, is his pleasure, or what can he treasure?
His self-respect is his single stay;
And he must have something he calls his own,
Or he slaughters and burns as a savage alone.
'Tis a dolorous life, God knows! to inherit.
Not so!-for myself, at least, I prefer it.
I have trod the round world from land to land,
Have noted and proved all modes of existence,
Served under the Spanish Monarchy and
The Venetian Republic, and lent my assistance
To the kingdom of Naples; but Fortune's cup
Was ever for me distasteful and bitter.
I have seen Priest, Merchant, Mechanic and Ritter,†
All ranks from the least to the loftiest up,
And my iron doublet is still the vest
That pleases me better than all the rest.
Let those who seek titles and ribbons and honors
Crouch down, if they chuse, at the feet of the donors.
Let those who would delve on their forefathers' ground
Till their children and grand-children spring up around,
Pursue their sequestered labours in peace-
I cannot go partners with any of these;
Free will I live and free will I die,
Indebted, to none and defrauding none,
And glancing down from my charger on
The moiling world with a soldier's eye.
Bravo! you speak like a Trojan, my lad!
FIRST HARQUEBUSSIER.
So, then, you think it exceedingly pleasant
To ride roughshod o'er the wretched peasant?
Comrade!-the times are hard and sad;
The sword is bared and the scales are gone;
But let no man say that the warrior therefore
The gladlier girds his weapon on.
Though a soldier I can and will be a man!
But this let me add-I will never be one
To be trod on myself, without first knowing wherefore!
FIRST HARQUEBUSSIER.
And whose is the fault, except our own,
If we look for subsistence away from the Throne?
Here are sixteen years of war, hardship and dole,
And the burgher and peasant must still pay the whole.
My friend, the good God who rules over Earth's ball,
Can't equally meet the fancies of all :
Some clamour for sun; more wish he were set;
This asks for dry weather; the other wants wet;
So, that which seems hardship and suffering to you
Is to me but Life under a bright point of view.
If I eat and drink at the burgher's cost,
I pity the burgher for what he has lost,
But how can I alter the course of things?
It is just as when my charger springs
O'er the field in his foaming and fiery wrath,
Come who come may in front of my path-
Let my brother be there—let me hear the wild,
The heartwringing shrieks of my only child-
I cannot rein in my steed—he must
Tread down the dear form in the bloody dust.
FIRST YAGER.
Poh! when are such accidents ever discussed?
FIRST CUIRASSIER.
But now, friends, seeing a crisis is come,
Shall we slink into rat-holes, timid and dumb?
No! seize the occasion while yet you may.
Don't think that War's harvests will last alway.
Peace will come, and that soon-ere a man can say Trapstick!
What then will the soldier's calling avail ?
We shall all, when the peasant rewields his crabstick,
Be dragging the devil again by the tail.
Here are we in thousands; why should we be mute?
We have now got the ball, for once, at our foot;
Let us make one bold simultaneous endeavour,
Or the breadbasket henceforth hangs higher than ever.
A blue look-out! But it never shall be!
Come, then let us all speak up without fear.
Yes, let us confer-let us settle things here.
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