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The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 03

Год написания книги
2018
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Is't so! I can no longer what I would?

No longer draw back at my liking? I

Must do the deed, because I thought of it?

And fed this heart here with a dream? Because

I did not scowl temptation from my presence,

Dallied with thoughts of possible fulfilment,

Commenced no movement, left all time uncertain,

And only kept the road, the access open?

By the great God of Heaven! it was not

My serious meaning, it was ne'er resolved.

I but amused myself with thinking of it.

The free-will tempted me, the power to do

Or not to do it—Was it criminal

To make the fancy minister to hope,

To fill the air with pretty toys of air,

And clutch fantastic sceptres moving t'ward me!

Was not the will kept free? Beheld I not

The road of duty close beside me—but

One little step, and once more I was in it!

Where am I? Whither have I been transported?

No road, no track behind me, but a wall

Impenetrable, insurmountable,

Rises obedient to the spells I muttered

And meant not—my own doings tower behind me.

[Pauses and remains in deep thought.]

A punishable man I seem; the guilt,

Try what I will, I cannot roll off from me;

The equivocal demeanor of my life

Bears witness on my prosecutor's party.

And even my purest acts from purest motives

Suspicion poisons with malicious gloss.

Were I that thing for which I pass, that traitor,

A goodly outside I had sure reserved,

Had drawn the coverings thick and double round me,

Been calm and chary of my utterance;

But being conscious of the innocence

Of my intent, my uncorrupted will,

I gave way to my humors, to my passion:

Bold were my words, because my deeds were not.

Now every planless measure, chance event,

The threat of rage, the vaunt of joy and triumph,

And all the May-games of a heart o'erflowing,

Will they connect, and weave them all together

Into one web of treason; all will be plain,

My eye ne'er absent from the far-off mark,

Step tracing step, each step a politic progress;

And out of all they'll fabricate a charge

So specious that I must myself stand dumb.

I am caught in my own net, and only force,

Nought but a sudden rent, can liberate me.
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