ATTING.
The league concluded! Is it really so?
MELCH.
On one day shall the Cantons rise together.
All is prepared to strike—and to this hour
The secret closely kept, though hundreds share it;
The ground is hollow 'neath the tyrants' feet;
Their days of rule are number'd, and ere long
No trace will of their hateful sway be left.
ATTING.
Ay, but their castles, how to master them?
MELCH.
On the same day they, too, are doom'd to fall.
ATTING.
And are the nobles parties to this league?
STAUFF.
We trust to their assistance, should we need it;
As yet the peasantry alone have sworn.
ATTING. (raising himself up in great astonishment).
And have the peasantry dared such a deed
On their own charge, without the nobles' aid—
Relied so much on their own proper strength?
Nay then, indeed, they want our help no more;
We may go down to death cheer'd by the thought,
That after us the majesty of man
Will live, and be maintain'd by other hands.
[He lays his hand upon the head of the child who is kneeling before him.]
From this boy's head, whereon the apple lay,
Your new and better liberty shall spring;
The old is crumbling down—the times are changing—
And from the ruins blooms a fairer life.
STAUFF. (to Furst).
See, see, what splendour streams around his eye!
This is not Nature's last expiring flame,
It is the beam of renovated life.