But, Cynthia, nothing is real except the happiness which thou canst enjoy. Those constellations which shine so brightly on thy head harmonize with thy bliss only through the illusions of a beguiling perspective. O young and fair Italian, time is ending! On those flowery carpets thy companions have already passed.
A mist unfolds itself, rises and veils the eye of the night with a silvery retina; the pelican cries and returns to the strand; the woodcock alights in the horse-tails of the diamond-studded springs; the bell resounds under the dome of St. Peter's; the nocturnal plain-chant, the voice of the middle-ages, saddens the lonely monastery of Santa-Croce; the monk chants Lauds upon his knees, on the calcined columns of San Paolo; vestals prostrate themselves on the icy slab that closes their crypts; the pifferaro pipes his midnight lament before the solitary Madonna, at the condemned gate of a catacomb. 'Tis the hour of melancholy; religion awakens and love falls asleep!
Cynthia, thy voice is weakening: the refrain which the Neapolitan fisherman taught thee in his swift-sailing bark, or the Venetian oarsman in his gondola, dies away on thy lips. Yield to the exhaustion of thy sleep; I will watch over thy repose. The darkness with which thy lids cover thy eyes vies in suavity with that which drowsy, perfumed Italy pours over thy brow. When the neighing of our horses is heard in the Campagna, when the morning-star proclaims the dawn, the herd of Frascati will come down with his goats and I shall not cease to soothe thee with my whispered lullaby:
"A bundle of jasmin and narcissus, an alabaster Hebe but lately emerging from the hollow way of an excavation, or fallen from the frontal of a temple, lies on this bed of anemones: no, Muse, you err. The jasmin, the alabaster Hebe is a Roman sorceress, born sixteen months ago of May and the half of a spring, to the sound of the lyre, at the rise of dawn, in a field of roses of Pæstum.
"Winds from the orange-trees of Palermo that blow over Circe's isle; breezes that pass to Tasso's tomb, that caress the nymphs and Cupids of the Farnese; you that play in the Vatican among Raphael's Virgins, among the statues of the Muses; you that dip your wings in the cascades of Tivoli; genii of the arts that live on master-pieces and flutter with the memories, come: you alone do I permit to inspire Cynthia's sleep.
"And you, majestic daughters of Pythagoras, Fates in your robes of flax, inevitable sisters seated at the axle of the spheres, turn the thread of Cynthia's destiny over golden spindles; make it fall from your fingers and rise again to your hands with ineffable harmony; immortal spinsters, open the gate of ivory to those dreams which lie on a woman's breast without oppressing it! I will sing thee, O canephor of the Roman solemnities, young Charite fed on ambrosia in Venus' lap, smile sent from the East to glide over my life, violet forgotten in Horace' garden...."
"Mein Herr, ten kreutzers vor de durnbike!"
A plague upon you with your "crutches!" I had changed my sky! I was just in the right mood! The Muse will not return! That accursed Eger, to which we are coming, is the cause of my unhappiness.
The nights are fatal at Eger. Schiller shows us Wallenstein, betrayed by his accomplices, going to the window of a room in the fortress of Eger:
Am Himmel ist geschäftige Bewegung,
Des Thurmes Fahne jagt der Wind, schnell geht
Der Wolken Zug, die Mondeszichel wankt,
Und durch die Nacht zucht ungewisse Helle[3].
Wallenstein, on the point of being assassinated, expresses himself in touching terms on the death of Max Piccolomini[4], beloved by Thekla[5]:
Die Blume ist hinweg aus meinem Leben
. . . . . . .
Denn er stand neben mir, wie meine Jugend,
Er machte mir das Wirkliche zum Traum[6].