Since scorning faction's low and partial aim
Aloof thou wendest in thy stately pace,
Thy self redeeming from that leprous stain,
Nobility; and, aye, unterrified
Pourest thine Abdiel warnings on the train
That sit complotting with rebellious pride,
'Gainst her, * who from the Almighty's bosom leap'd
With whirlwind arm, fierce minister of love !
Wherefore, ere virtue o'er thy tomb hath wept,
Angels shall lead thee to the throne above :
And thou from forth its clouds shall hear the voice,

Champion of Freedom and her god! rejoice !"

TO ERSKINE.

When British Freedom, for a happier land,
Spread her broad wings, that flutter'd with affright,
Erskine ! thy voice she heard, and paused her flight
Sublime of hope! For dreadless thou didst stand
(Thy censer glowing with the hallow'd flame)
A hireless priest before th' insulted shrine,
And at her altar pour the stream divine
Of unmatch'd eloquence. Therefore thy name
Her sons shall venerate, and cheer thy breast
With blessings heaven-ward breath'd. And when the

doom
Of Nature bids thee die, beyond the tomb
Thy light shall shine; as sunk beneath the west,
Tho' the great Summer Sun eludes our gaze
Still burns wide heaven with his distended blaze.

Gallic Liberty.

A COUPLET,

WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF

POEMS PRESENTED BY MR.

COLERIDGE TO DR. A.—A HIGHLY RESPECTED FRIEND, THE LOSS OF WHOSE SOCIETY HE DEEPLY REGRETTED.

To meet, to know, to love--and then to part,
Is the sad tale of many a human heart.

THE PICCOLOMINI;

OR, THE FIRST PART OF WALLENSTEIN.

A DRAMA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OP SCHILLER.

M

PREFACE OF THE TRANSLATOR.

It was my intention to have prefixed a Life of Wallenstein to this translation; but I found that it must either have occupied a space wholly disproportionate to the nature of the publication, or have been merely a meagre catalogue of event's narrated not more fully than they already are in the Play itself. The recent translation, likewise, of Schiller's “ History of the Thirty Years' War" diminished the motives thereto. In the translation I endeavoured to render my Author literally wherever I was not prevented by absolute differences of idiom ; but I am conscious, that in two or three short passages I have been guilty of dilating the original; and, from anxiety to give the full meaning, have weakened the force. In the metre I have availed myself of no other liberties than those which Schiller had permitted to himself, except the occasional breaking-up of the line by the substitution of a trochee for an iambic; of which liberty, so frequent in our tragedies, I find no instance in these dramas.

S. T. COLERIDGE.